BEIJING -- China executed around 24 people immediately after they were sentenced to death for crimes ranging from murder to robbery at a public rally in the northeastern city of Shenyang, court officials said on Friday. "Forty criminals were publicly sentenced at a 10,000-people rally on September 11," said an official at the intermediate people's court in Shenyang, where China is due to play Uzbekistan in a world cup football qualifier on Saturday. "The total number of death sentences was probably 24." The 40 had been convicted on murder, kidnapping and robbery charges, she told Reuters. China executes more people than the rest of the world combined each year, most with a bullet to the back of the head. At least 1,781 people were executed in the first half of this year in a nationwide "strike-hard" campaign against crime, according to Amnesty International, the London-based human rights group. Public rallies for mass sentences and executions are common during "strike-hard" campaigns, when suspects are often convicted more swiftly and punished more harshly than usual.