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I didn't think China could possibly sink any lower, but...

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...Right, so, this guy breaks the law, gets the punishment, and now China are ~oh so bad~?

I'm not going to go into my views on the Death Penalty, but he broke the Law of a country, so should he not get the punishment of the country he broke the law in?

We may see the Death Penalty as harsh, but it's normal in China. I can't remember which, but I heard of a country which whips its criminals as punishment as well as keeping them in jail, in that country, it's normal.

Alright he had mental health problems, but then again, what mental health problems? Nothing there says he has a problem which makes him smuggle drugs into a country without knowing, for all you know "mental health problems" could just be depression or something.

And also sometimes countries or families use the "THEY HAVE MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES" as an excuse or scapegoat, even to a trained professional, with a little help from things like Wikipedia and Google, it's very, very easy to fake having a mental illness.
Mental illness aren't like physical illnesses and problems, mental illnesses sometimes have hardly any "symptoms" and they don't leave a mark like some physical illnesses.

I'm not saying whether this guy did or didn't have them, I'm just saying theres always the possibility, and even if he didn't have mental illness people would still be like "NOOOO" over this...
 
Dusk~Dawn said:
He was mentally ill, damn it. You can't kill someone for being mental, can you? Thank god we in Britain demolished execution years ago.
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being "mentally ill" doesn't automatically excuse you from bad behavior

I happen to know a few "retarded" people that pass for normal by anyone except a professionals standards

there are degrees and variations of mental illnesses

I don't know what may have been wrong with this man (I didn't read the full article) but the fact that he was mentally fit enough to smuggle drugs into China tells me that he's at least one of those pseudo normal people

did the punishment fit the crime? probably not

but his mental status IMO shouldn't have any bearing on this case

also
@shiny noctowl: that doesn't make him innocent
it's a really sucky situation if true
but in the eyes of the law being "tricked" into breaking the law doesn't make you innocent (though you'll occasionally get a break or even amnesty depending on the situation)
 
Also, he was BIPOLAR, that's no reason to smuggle heroin, I'm bipolar it doesn't affect me an any way similar to what he did. The man is either faking or taking advantage of an illness that has nothing to do with this. Either way, he's full of shit.
 
revolvingscott said:
Well, unless he didn't know that it was heroin, it's his own fault that he was killed.
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Exactly. He didn't know that he was carrying heroin. The article I cited in my last post showed that he had a history of severe mental illness, but the Chinese government couldn't care less. They executed him without even testing him for mental illness. I think the best solution for this case and other cases would have been for any country to extradite all foreigners suspected of crimes to their respective home countries.

Nolder said:
that doesn't make him innocent
it's a really sucky situation if true
but in the eyes of the law being "tricked" into breaking the law doesn't make you innocent (though you'll occasionally get a break or even amnesty depending on the situation)
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Actually, in order to be guilty of a crime, mens rea, or the intention to commit the crime, is necessary. Therefore, in order to be guilty of drug smuggling, the prosecution would have to prove not just that the suitcase contained heroin, but that Akmal Shaikh was aware that the suitcase contained heroin, which was not the case.
Furthermore, article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Drug Trafficking, which the Chinese government cited as justification of the execution of Shaikh, says:

Subject to its constitutional principles and the basic concepts of its legal system, each Party shall adopt such measures as may be necessary to establish as a criminal offence under its domestic law, when committed intentionally, the possession, purchase or cultivation of narcotic drugs or psychotropic substances for personal consumption contrary to the provisions of the 1961 Convention, the 1961 Convention as amended or the 1971 Convention.
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Note the part I've bolded.
 
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Exactly. He didn't know that he was carrying heroin. The article I cited in my last post showed that he had a history of severe mental illness
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Manic Depression does fuck all to something like that.
 
All of you who are saying "he broke the law, he deserves it": holy fucking shit, you guys.

Honestly, I'm disgusted reading some of the posts in this thread.
He was MENTALLY ILL, and taken advantage of. Odds are, he had no idea he was doing ANYTHING wrong- it was just a matter of "do this, and we promise we'll make you a big star." And he fell for it.

And takoto, your reasoning "it's easy to use mental illness as an excuse" is problematic, if not borderline ableist. Watch some of the videos of his songs on YouTube. It is clear this man lacked the mental capacity to understand what he was doing.


I can promise that if this was happening in the US or some other Western country, you would all be up in arms about it. I guess somehow if the Chinese are doing it, that makes it okay. Human rights are human rights, period.
 
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Did the guy not even think of actually seeing what was in the suitcase that he was given?
 
:/
I don't understand how he could be tricked that easily. I've met people with mental problems and they were able to detect when they were being taking advantage of.
Maybe his ambition of being a singer was too much, idk.
With the whole death penalty thing, I think it was unnecessary. He did commit a crime and so should have been punished. Just not to that extreme.
 
I think it could possibly be justifiable. He smuggled heroin, and the Chinese are a lot more strict with illegal substances. Plus, I'm Communist, but you already knew that.
 
FistOfTheBeastKing said:
I think it could possibly be justifiable. He smuggled heroin, and the Chinese are a lot more strict with illegal substances.
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He didn't smuggle heroin, because smuggling requires mens rea, or criminal intent, which he didn't have since he didn't know that the suitcase had heroin in it.
 
Shiny Noctowl said:
He didn't smuggle heroin, because smuggling requires mens rea, or criminal intent, which he didn't have since he didn't know that the suitcase had heroin in it.
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You are assuming he knew, right now you seem to be blindly believing his story which could easily be proven true or false. Who was he meeting to hand over the suitcase, where are the people that gave him the suitcase, etc etc. There are a million and one things out there to prove if he was a useful idiot or not. Until we have those things all you have is the story of one man trying to look innocent after getting caught.
 
Erm, I will say this one more time, he was BI-fucking-POLAR! That is no excuse and "I didn't know what was in the suitcase" is even worse, did he not look? I'm not an asshole, I just think that he shouldn't have smuggled them in the first place.
 
Shiny Noctowl said:
Exactly. He didn't know that he was carrying heroin. The article I cited in my last post showed that he had a history of severe mental illness, but the Chinese government couldn't care less. They executed him without even testing him for mental illness. I think the best solution for this case and other cases would have been for any country to extradite all foreigners suspected of crimes to their respective home countries.


Actually, in order to be guilty of a crime, mens rea, or the intention to commit the crime, is necessary. Therefore, in order to be guilty of drug smuggling, the prosecution would have to prove not just that the suitcase contained heroin, but that Akmal Shaikh was aware that the suitcase contained heroin, which was not the case.
Furthermore, article 3 of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit Drug Trafficking, which the Chinese government cited as justification of the execution of Shaikh, says:



Note the part I've bolded.
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quoting you removed some stuff...strange
I dunno all the ins and outs of bulbagarden but if the stuff doesn't reappear note that I did not remove it from the quote

anyway
what about manslaughter?
also I've been given a ticket for walking against the Do Not Start hand (the blinking one)
I never intended to break any law but I did
IIRC ignorance of the law is no excuse

also as far as the UN convention and such
the UN is a joke in my eyes
it's a nice gesture but countries like China are really only going to follow it as long as it suits them
in this case it didn't and so they didn't

also I see a lot of people talking about the guys "mental illness"
I still don't know what he had for sure but given the nature of what happened to him it doesn't like the guy is a drooling idiot
incapable of taking care of himself

he's probably as fit as most of us here

so saying things like "he shouldn't be expected to check the suitcase a stranger gave him because he's bipolor!" strikes me as kind of ridiculous
 
yes because it so horrible that china executes someone guilty but its A-OK that we in the states imprison and kill people who may be innocent.
 
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Well I'm 100% against the death penalty but he broke their law, he has to face their consequences.
 
on another forum, i read that he also drunk-drove and abused people or something, but i'm not sure. either way, it's china's law, and if he's that gullible he shouldnt be allowed to travel on his own tbh.
 
Satoshi-kun said:
It would be like sending someone from Amsterdam who was vacationing in the US to jail for smoking a joint on the street (well, not exactly I guess, what this cat did was illegal in both countries, but you know what I mean). You have to play by the rules of the country you are in, and you have to face the penalties for not.

Now, if they were going to sentence a guy to death for having a book about how their government is shit in their messenger bag, that would be completely different... but we're talking heroin here. I can't really begrudge a government for doing their best to tackle the problem of illegal drugs that can kill their users very quickly, or at least render them unable to perform in society all too quickly.
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I agree with Satoshi. While the death penalty was little over the top, it doesn't change the facts. He broke the law. If you break the law you get punished. Granted this punishment might have been reduced, but Heroin is no joke. I know someone who used to do it and it makes them shut veryone else in their life out and they just change into a drug addicted monster.
 
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