Earlier today China executed a British citizen for the first time in 50 years. Akmal Shaikh, reported to suffer from "severe mental illness", was arrested in 2007 for attempting to smuggle heroin into China from Tajikistan. 

In response to the execution, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown issued a statement strongly condemning China's refusal to grant clemency, especially given the uncertainty surrounding Shaikh's mental health status. China responded simply, "We express strong dissatisfaction and opposition to the British reaction.  We hope the British side will face this case squarely and not put new obstacles in the way of relations between Britain and China."

Furthermore, the extensive international criticism prompted China's "legal experts" to defend the execution as "legitimate" and in accordance with "China's Criminal Law".  Wang Mingliang, a professor of criminal law at Fudan University in Shanghai, even went as far as to say that Shaikh's execution had "nothing to do with human rights concerns." (Read more after the jump)

Further enraging the British government is the recent cancellation of a meeting planned for January of the new year to discuss China's human rights record.  The British Foreign Office minister Ivan Lewis even went so far as to call the Chinese ambassador down to his office to personally express his displeasure with this pair of recent decisions. 

While any further political back and forth is too late to save Mr. Shaikh, China's denial of human rights must be addressed.  China executes more people every year than all other countries combined, and in many cases the executed's organs are harvested for the Communist Party's profit. To learn more about China's death penalty and organ harvesting, click here.