AT LEAST 27 EXECUTED IN CHINA FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING

At least 27 convicted drug criminals were executed in China to mark
Wednesday's international anti-drug day, while scores of others were
sentenced to death or to prison terms, state press reports said.

Fourteen people were sentenced to death in China's southwestern Sichuan
province on Tuesday, with nine of them immediately taken to the execution
grounds and shot, the China News Service reported.

The sentencing took place at a rally at the Shuangliu county sports ground
in the provincial capital of Chengdu, where local authorities also
incinerated 40 kilograms of drugs, it said.

The remaining five were given a two-year reprieve on their death sentences,
the report said. In China this usually means the punishment is commuted to
life in prison.

"In recent years in Chengdu drug crimes have been on the rise and the drug
situation is becoming serious as drug criminals are linking up with
criminals outside the province," the report said.

The executions were part of police and judicial activities carried out
nationwide in observance of Wednesday's International Day against Drug
Abuse and Illicit Trafficking.

In Hengyang, central Hunan province, seven people were executed for
criminal gang activities, including trafficking heroin from Myanmar on
China's southwestern to border to the provinces of Hunan and Guangdong over
a six-year period from 1994 to 2000, the Legal Daily said.

China does not publish statistics on executions numbers. Rights group
Amnesty International documented 2,468 last year, but has suggested the
true figure could be much higher.