Repression that pleases

Iran executions China and Iran are certainly not the only dictatorship in the world but are leading the ranking of countries applicating the death penalty. In China, in 2008 more than 1700 were executed, in Iran 350. But the worst thing is that a good proportion of those convicted hadn't a fair trial and probably many of them had committed no crime other than to oppose the dictatorship. Iran has just sentenced to death 4 opponents who would had participated in recent protests.

China has just sentenced to death 6 Uighurs involved in the riots in Xinjiang this summer. All these people have undergone trial that no one can call fair, often they were intimidated, beaten, forced to accuse themselves and they did not have a lawyer. Iran and China are dictatorships without the slightest respect for human rights apart from a bit of fiction in the face of international organizations, and all their trials are farces, the political ones in particular.
The 4 Iranians sentenced to death are members of the Iranian monarchist party and of People's Mujahedin, a socialist organization. They are therefore some of the historical opponents of the theocratic regime. Royalists were defeated in the revolution of 1979 that drove the Shah away, the Socialists participated in the revolution but were betrayed by Khomeini and his followers and killed en masse shortly after. But there are concerns that the death sentences against these opponents will pave the way for other convictions against peaceful demonstrators and moderates who have followed Mousavi and other opposition leaders in the protests that followed the elections won by Ahmadinejad with a strong suspicion of fraud. The attitude of the West against Iran is currently very soft. The Americans hope to get cooperation on the nuclear issue and are still waiting for the release of three tourists that were arrested this summer near the Iranian border.
The Europeans have always been good friends of the theocratic regime in Iran. Not only Russia, Germany and Italy are its main financial backers, but the European Union had also declared "terrorists" the People's Mujahedin, until earlier this year the organization won a long legal battle to be removed from the list of terrorist groups. But the gist of the story is that the regime can kill whoever he wants and the West will not move a finger, nothing more than stage some hypocritical protests.
As regards China, tolerance and friendship of the Western countries are even more benign and helpful. Uighurs and Tibetans can be sentenced to death without anybody saying anything. Besides full support to the Chinese regime is not recent history: the West begun in the 70s for anti-Soviet reasons and never protested too much against the cruel repressions of the regime: neither for the massacre of Tienanmen square, nor for the persecution of the peaceful religion of Falun Gong, nor for the arrests of activists for human rights.
The point is that there isn't the slightest sign that dictatorships like China and Iran have plans to slowly become more democratic. Rather are Western governments that have become increasingly dictatorial. Italy in particular is making great strides in this area. So when the men in power in the West see the efficiency with which Chinese and Iranian governements massacre opponents that do not seem to arise in them a feeling of indignation. Rather, one of admiration.