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China Says Serious Polluters Will Get the Death Penalty

Posted by Soulskill on from the green-revolution-will-not-be-televised dept.

formaggio writes "According to the Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese government is now allowing courts to punish those who commit environment crimes with the death penalty. The new judicial interpretation comes in the wake of several serious environmental problems that have hit the country over the last few months, including dangerous levels of air pollution, a river full of dead pigs, and other development projects that have imperiled public health."

7 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. Eh what's the point when decisions are made. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 2, Interesting

    China is saving more lives abandoning communism and heavy socialism, as we are witnessing. Would that the west keep that in mind as it rockets in the wrong direction, living off past glories of economic freedom.

    Murder people? You've gotta be kidding. There's a reason you don't execute rapists or failed attempted murderers -- "If you're gonna be exected anyway, well, dead women tell no tales."

    Presumably dead inspectors tell no tales, either. :(

    By the way, if your impulse to the OP is "Good!", you habe serious problems, wanting to murder political opposition. Eh, these people are in favor of censorship, so it's not surprising.

    Go ahead. Censor me because you don't like being accused of having a desire to censor people who claim you like censoring.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  2. Re:Thou hast angered thy King by Half-pint+HAL · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...off with your head!

    Seriously, China? WTF. Going back to medieval values here? Executing people for pollution?

    They should be punished, but death is a bit much.

    Yeah, the death penalty should be reserved for angry guys who stab one person with a knife. The civilised punishment for poisoning the water drunk by thousands of people is a slap on the wrist and a fine that looks large to newpaper readers but causes no material harm to the perpetrator....

    --
    Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
  3. Good? More like "Good Luck" by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I seriously doubt it will be implemented against any company or person that is sufficiently connected to the PRC government - this list would include pretty much every existing big company HQ'd in China.

    Now potential competitors to the aforementioned companies, and anyone who the PRC government doesn't like? Oh hell yes it'll be implemented - even if the offender has to get a little governmental 'assistance' in generating pollution sufficient to warrant execution.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    1. Re:Good? More like "Good Luck" by Luckyo · · Score: 4, Interesting

      This isn't about littering. This is about high level leadership making choices for quick profit over sustainable methods. Historically and criminologically the only place that severe punishments ever worked has been at that level, because at that level people spend significant amount of consideration about risk/reward ratio.

      It's the same reason why tough penalties don't work for petty crime or desperate people - they do not perform same evaluations with anywhere near the same seriousness or effort.

    2. Re:Good? More like "Good Luck" by femtobyte · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Excessively harsh penalties tend to be counter-productive because they are almost never carried out

      Tell that to the people China executed over industrial-scale adulteration of milk with melamine in 2008:

      A number of criminal prosecutions occurred, with two people being executed, another given a suspended death penalty, three others receiving life imprisonment, two receiving 15-year jail terms,[6] and seven local government officials, as well as the Director of the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) being fired or forced to resign.

      (from Wikipedia)

      Just because the government of our Megacorporate States of America would never dream about enforcing substantial penalties against our industrialist overlords for mass-murdering in the name of profit, doesn't mean China won't.

    3. Re:Good? More like "Good Luck" by WOOFYGOOFY · · Score: 4, Interesting

      No. Our court system doesn't have the capacity to individually prosecute all the loan officers who systematically lied to people in order to induce them to assume levels of debt and then walked away from what they had done.

      No. Our court system doesn't have the capacity to individually prosecute all the bankers who systematically sold securities they knew would crash to people in order to induce them and then walked away from what they had done.

      No. Our court system doesn't have the capacity to individually prosecute all the coke snorting analysts and traders who cooked up a complicated system of CDO and derivatives and pretended to understand same, all the while demanding to be free from regulation and which later took the whole economy down , the only repercussion that they got bailed out, doubled down on their bonuses and walked away from what they had done.

      No. Our court system doesn't have the capacity to individually prosecute all the degenerate economists and lobbyists whose "free market" deregulatory theories of non-reality paved the grounds for the entire meltdown but who took no responsibility and walked away from what they had done.

      FTFY

      Ayn Rand was a amphetamine addicted speed freak who was sexually aroused by stories of rapists, child molesters and murders.

      http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2010/08/02/ayn-rand%E2%80%99s-superman-a-serial-killer-and-rapist/

      http://www.athenstalks.com/ayn-rands-role-model-her-new-society-child-rapist-and-murderer

      And those who fo9llow her are more of the same- antisocial personality disorders dressing themselves up as "philosophers"

  4. Re:Thou hast angered thy King by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't know. If you have the death penalty I can see pollution being a worthy offense. If you dump toxic waste into the drinking water and dozens get sick and die of cancer-- how is that any different from murder.

    Good for China. Here in the US we would just fine them a few million... they would shift their assets to a sub division... sell that to themselves and declare bankruptcy without paying a dime. Then keep on doing what they were doing until they got caught the next time.

    I don't believe in the death penalty, but I see the logic, it's in effect attempted murder in severe cases (or actual murder). Several coal mining companies have commited what amounts to manslaughter in the US.