China holds mass sentencing in football stadium

Trucks carrying criminals and suspects are seen during a mass sentencing rally at a stadium in Yili, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on May 27, 2014. Local officials in China's western Xinjiang region held the public rally for the mass sentencing of criminals on Tuesday, handing out judgments for 55 people and at least three death sentences for crimes such as "violent terrorism," state media said. [Reuters]


Trucks carrying criminals and suspects are seen during a mass sentencing rally at a stadium in Yili, Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on May 27, 2014. Local officials in China's western Xinjiang region held the public rally for the mass sentencing of criminals on Tuesday, handing out judgments for 55 people and at least three death sentences for crimes such as "violent terrorism," state media said. [Reuters]

"In a spectacle designed to show their resolve against terrorism, Chinese authorities held a public sentencing in a football stadium in the northwestern Xinjiang region of 55 people convicted of violent crimes," reports the LA Times.

"The sentencing follows the car bombing last week in the northwestern city of Urumqi in which 43 people died, the deadliest attack in China in nearly five years."

Related coverage at Reuters:

The public sentencing, reminiscent of China's revolutionary era rallies, attracted a crowd of 7,000 at a sports stadium in Yining city in the northern prefecture of Yili.

Photos showed packed stadium bleachers and trucks parked on the sports field loaded with prisoners in orange vests being guarded by armed police.

The public spectacle was first reported by China's official Xinhua news agency. Links to the story at Xinhua appear to have been taken down.