China Executes British Drug Smuggler…He Was Executed By Lethal Injection

I have never been to mainland China, but I have been in Taiwan,Singapore, and India, all southeast asian countries close to China, but not a part of it, and I can tell you that they make it quite clear before you leave the plane, and way before you get into customs that drug smuggling is… punishable by death, or something very close to it.

One of my favorite programs is “Locked-up Abroad” on the National Geographic television network, and if you follow this series, you will see most of the stories deal with westerners that get caught smuggling drugs out of foreign lands.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/locked-up-abroad

Obviously, since the people are presenting their personal stories on the program, they were not executed, but many of them spend well over a decade in a foreign prison, where the laws concerning cruel and unusual punishment are way different than the American policy.

In fact, most countries support cruel and unusual punishment, that is why it is a good practice to not smuggle drugs into or out of foreign lands.

You may be put to death.

Last night ,the sovereign nation of  China put to death convicted drug smuggler Akmal Shaikh,53 year old father of three. He had been convicted of smuggling 4kg of heroin in Urumqi, north-west China, in September 2007. His family claims that due to his bi-polar disorder, he had been tricked into carrying a suitcase loaded with heroin that he received from a stranger.

Akmal Shaikh...executed in China for smuggling heroin.

China noted that Akmal Shaikh had no existing medical record concerning the mental illness claims, and thus, went ahead with the execution.

The BBC is reporting…The execution took place despite repeated calls from his family and the British government for clemency.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he was “appalled and disappointed”…(SOURCE–http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8433285.stm)

I recommend that you never accept or carry a suitcase for anyone in a foreign country, especially if you have not opened it and checked the contents thoroughly, like the police do.

China as most countries in Asia, should be a point of interest for all of us westerners to travel to,so that we can all discover the beauty of their culture.

This execution will not prevent me from traveling there, but it should serve as a warning to those few people who may be tempted, or purpose or unwittingly, to smuggle illegal drugs in to or out of their country.

A sovereign nation has the right to administer their own punishment within the border of their country, for any illegal offense, even if it is viewed negatively outside of their borders.

Many times, our laws are viewed as lenient, but we must consider that China has billions and billions of citizens, and that dynamic might demand a different level of law enforcement that is foreign to our situation in the western world.

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For a different point of view on this story, click on this link….

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sarah-e-jones/shaikh-case-illustrates-n_b_406512.html