Chinese authorities faced a bitter outcry after executing a villager who became a symbol of injustices endured by the country’s disenfranchised masses. Jia had been convicted in 2015 of using an adapted nail gun to kill He Jianhua, the 55-year-old chief of the village where he lived. Xinhua, China’s official news agency, said Jia was executed on Tuesday morning in the northern city of Shijiazhuang after a local court ruled the sentence should be carried out. “The legal community and the whole of society have been calling for the death penalty not to be carried out. “She was not sentenced to death so what is the reason to sentence an ordinary person to death?” Zhang asked.

Source: The Guardian November 15, 2016 05:48 UTC