China executes unpaid migrant who killed four
2005-10-21

Category Migrant Workers Murder Nations China States Ningxia

BEIJING - China has executed a migrant worker who, angry at not getting paid, killed four managers and co-workers, a newspaper said on Friday, despite calls from the public for leniency.

Wang Binyu, a worker at a construction site in the western region of Ningxia, killed the four in May after being insulted when he tried to get long-overdue wages.

Chinese media have covered the case widely, prompting hand-wringing over the plight of millions of abused migrant workers, with scholars calling for leniency.

"The Ningxia Regional High Court has turned down Wang's appeal and he was executed after the final verdict on Oct. 19," the Legal Daily newspaper said on Friday.

Some 800 million of China's 1.3 billion people live in the countryside, and in the past 20 years 120 million have swarmed into cities for low-paying jobs on construction sites or in factories and restaurants.

Last year, Xinhua news agency reported that 20 billion yuan ($2.48 billion) owed to migrant workers went unpaid.

State leaders have paid much lip service to "caring and loving migrant workers" and have vowed to eradicate the problem of nonpayment.

But many workes have committed suicide in recent years, in some cases throwing themselves from buildings they were helping to build, to draw attention to their plight.

Wang had told reporters in jail he had been treated "like a dog" by managers when asking for his wages.

The high court verdict was published word for word in the Legal Daily.

Despite the fact that Wang had turned himself in, his acts were "extremely cruel" and consequences caused were "extremely serious", it said, and thus he did not qualify for leniency. (Reuters)