CHINA EXECUTES 64 ON ANTI-DRUG DAY

SHANGHAI, China - China marked U.N. anti-drug day by executing 64 people
accused of drug crimes, officials and state media said Wednesday.

Many of the executions on Tuesday and Wednesday came immediately after
public rallies where thousands watched judges condemn the accused.

China usually marks International Anti-Drug Day on June 26 with a wave of
publicized executions, underscoring authorities' belief that harsh
punishments are an effective weapon against the spread of drugs. Officials
from the United Nations have said they do not condone the practice.

Another 188 people also accused of drug crimes were given prison terms of
up to life at the rallies.

The biggest number of executions came in the southwestern city of
Chongqing, where 24 people were shot Wednesday for drug crimes, according
to the official Xinhua News Agency. The report said most of those executed
were found guilty of trafficking heroin.

Executions in China are usually by gunshot to the back of the head or
through the heart.

In Shanghai three men were executed after being condemned in front of a
1,000-strong crowd for smuggling heroin, Ecstasy and crystal
methamphetamine - also known as "ice," said a spokesman for the Shanghai
Higher People's Court, which organized the rally. He gave only his family
name, Huang.

In the southwest city of Chengdu, nine men were shot Tuesday after a rally
in which thousands cheered as police burned piles of seized heroin and
Ecstasy, a state-run newspaper said.

Five more people were given suspended death sentences, usually reduced to
life sentences for good behavior, said the Sichuan Zaixian Yitianfu newspaper.

Twenty-eight other executions were carried out in the southern and eastern
provinces of Fujian, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui, and in the capital Beijing.

Drug use was all but wiped out after the Communist Party swept to power in
1949. Dealers were shot and addicts forced to quit cold turkey. But drugs
returned with relaxed social and economic controls in the 1980s.