Leocardo [pt] comments on this week's Amnesty International's report that ranked China the first in the world in the number of executions in 2007 (470), followed by Iran (317), Saudi Arabia (143), Pakistan (135) and the US (42). He analyzes the social issues behind death penalty in China and is surprised by the “Amnesty International's hipocrisy”. “I would make it clear, first of all, that I am against capital punishment. But we must try to understand the social and cultural causes behind a punishment that seems to be, for most of us free and democratic souls, an act of desperation.”