Poland, China: Lack of Response to Akmal Shaikh's Case

Polandian writes about Poland's lack of response to the execution of Akmal Shaikh in China: “[…] Akmal spent quite some time in Poland, was married to a Pole and is survived by two Polish children. The question was therefore raised as to why Poland did not join in the call for clemency? […] Poland remained silent throughout, presumably on the basis that he wasn’t Polish, he annoyed the police in Lublin and didn’t pay his taxes.”

12 comments

  • guest

    FWIW, he was executed by lethal injection. And at least one of the women executed in the photos above was shot for committing multiple murde

  • huhu88@yahoo.com

    Shaikh was born in Pakistan, and he migrated with his parents during his childhood to the United Kingdom. Shaikh was a Muslim, he married a Hindu who converted to Islam. They had two sons and a daughter together. His marriage ended in divorce. They lived in the United States in the 1980s, where Shaikh was an estate agent. They moved back to the United Kingdom when the business failed. He then started a mini-cab business in London but fell into bankruptcy. He subsequently moved to Poland where he married in Lublin; he had a son and daughter from that marriage. He then divorced and was wanted in 2007 by a Polish court for not paying alimonies. In 2006 he was sentenced by a Polish court for driving under the influence of alcohol with suspended one year jail sentence and prohibition of driving for three years. On average every 6 months he was visiting the Lublin City Council with new business proposals.

  • huhu88@yahoo.com

    Akmal Shaikh is business man totaly healthy and too clever

  • He was fit enough to commit a crime and fit enough to pay for it. Instead of supporting a convicted drug trafficker, our pathetic government should save their sympathy for victims instead. Many people here in the UK fully backed the sentence. When you compare the levels of crime, anti-social behaviour, vandalism etc between UK and Chinese cities, it becomes clear that China is doing something right. The UK has no right to lecture or criticize the Chinese criminal justice system.

    • Phil Donnelly

      We have no idea whether he was “fit” either to commit a crime or be convicted. Mental health assessments and background reports were not made available. Dreadful.

  • Zac In Space

    I saw on the news Chinese people trying to justify the execution and advising people of other nations not to interfere with their internal affiars. Their attitude is a typical display of Chinese arrogance. Huhu88’s post above clearly demonstrates my point. But I wonder if he or she
    can properly qualify the statement by providing credible or supporting information? Did you know the man?

    At least you can give a statement or an opinion even if you are bit ignorrant. I also wonder if you have anything negative to say about the Chinese government? I bet you dont but you wouldn’t dare say.

    China is still in the dark ages when it comes to social justice and protecting the rights of citizens. What is so unrreasonable with requesting an expert to allow more time to assess Akmal Shaikh’s mental state and to take the facts into account for the trial? To any sane, rational thinking person there is simply nothing unreasonable about it whatsoever.

    China thinks it can command the respect from other nations because it is an emerging power. They must learn that respect is something that is earned. They should be open to criticism rather than display total contempt and blatent disregard to other nations. This was such an attitude displayed by Chinese at Copenhagen.

    In my eyes modern China is powerful but not so great.

  • james

    it is better to educate british to commit crimes in EU

  • I am a Chinese, I have always been told there are two things can not do otherwise would be put to death.
    1. Bank robbery
    2. Drug trade
    This is the law of China, it should not only strict to the Chinese people but loose to foreigners.
    I fully agree with Petra’s point of view.

  • Vann

    I think you westerners in your $750000 homes and Lexuses should be more understanding. These kinds of draconian punishments may be necessary in backward third-world countries where people are so downtrodden that they have to kill and steal in order to survive.

  • I have been reading comments here and elsewhere about akmal shaikh’s story. It seems to interest me why certain issues become high profile when other pressing concerns are being overlooked (eg. the illegal case for the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent deaths of innocent civilians -100,000). I understand that the chilcot inquiry may not lead to any prosecutions. Even though chinese human rights policies do not conform to international law, its interesting to note how we gang up as school bullies to take, steal, rape, murder and legitimise our actions abroad and then conveniently forget. I totally agree with Petra’s comments. We need to sort out our own patch before we finger wag at others.

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