The current controversy over whether Taiwan should abolish capital punishment shows no sign of dying down. Over the past couple of weeks, political talk shows on TV have been a platform for pundits to air their views on the issue, but rarely if ever do they discuss in a rational way why they believe the death penalty should be retained or abolished.
In addition, there is zero reflection on what might have caused those on death row to take a life in the first place.
One thing that is clear is that, while plenty of perpetrators have been executed, their deaths fail to provide victims’ families with the kind of spiritual succor they need.
Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰) is a case in point. Long after the ringleader of the gang who kidnapped and murdered her daughter was put to death, her heart is still full of hatred, so much so that she has threatened to mobilize voters to “abolish” the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Pai’s hatred may even be strong enough to force the government’s hand. One gets the impression that the selection of the new justice minister following the resignation of death penalty opponent Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) has been made just to please Pai.
If a person’s heart is full of hatred, his or her soul will never be at rest. As South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu says, there is “no future without forgiveness.” Tutu has stressed again and again that forgiveness is the best path to ending pain and putting a stop to anguish. Shooting condemned criminals cannot diminish the hatred or relieve the pain in the hearts of victims’ families. It really cannot!
If we carefully reflect on the issue, it is not difficult to conclude that many of the factors that push people into delinquent behavior are the fault of society. In other words there is plenty of guilt to go around so it is not right to think only about the guilt of those who commit the crimes. Let us consider two examples.
In 1985, Taiwan was shocked by the case of Tsou Aboriginal youth Tang Ying-shen (湯英伸), who was sentenced to death for murder.
However, the origins of his crime could be traced back to the way he was treated by teachers at Chiayi Normal School. Tang really was an outstanding young man. In 1985, he passed the school’s entrance exam, but his teachers and military instructors categorized this lively young man with his many ideas as a problem-student and ultimately had him thrown out of school.
Tang then went to work in a laundry. Why did his boss at the laundry confiscate his identity card so that he couldn’t go home for Chinese New Year?
The treatment Tang received at school and work can be traced back to the sense of cultural superiority felt by Han Chinese and the way this causes many to look down on the disadvantaged Aborigines.
At the time, representatives of more than 100 civic, cultural and religious groups in Taiwan called on the authorities to grant Tang clemency and commute his death sentence to life imprisonment.
The petitioners felt that to do so would not only allow him to live out his life, but also help dispel many of the misunderstandings that exist between the Han and the Aborigines.
Despite these pleas, the execution was carried out as scheduled.
I also remember Nov. 18, 1997, when fugitive Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興), leader of the gang that kidnapped and killed Pai’s daughter, broke into the home of South African military attache McGill Alexander and took his family hostage.
Talking to Chen on the telephone, TTV news anchor Simon Tai (戴忠仁) asked him what he would do if he could start all over again. Chen replied: “I would study hard so that I wouldn’t be put in the slow learners’ class.”
Who had the idea of making schools separate their students into “gifted,” “high ability” and “low ability” classes? When, at the time, everyone was condemning Chen for his crimes and calling for the harshest penalty, Buddhist Master Shih Chao-hwei (釋昭慧) responded to a reporter’s question with one simple sentence: “Everyone in Taiwan is an accomplice in the Chen Chin-hsing case!”
My point in raising these two cases is to express a basic notion — that shooting these inmates did not help the families of their victims in any way.
I believe the death penalty should be abolished, but in order to do that we first need to institute a raft of complementary measures. For example, when those who would have been condemned to death are instead sentenced to life imprisonment, they should not be eligible for probation, pardons or amnesties, and so on.
Such prisoners should spend the rest of their lives behind bars, they should not be allowed visits from their families, and they should have to work in prison to pay for the cost of housing and feeding them. In this way, such individuals would be completely cut off from society. These are just three possible measures that come to mind; I am sure there is plenty of scope for further discussion.
Lu Chun-yi is pastor of the Taipei East Gate Presbyterian Church.
TRANSLATED BY JULIAN CLEGG
Could Asia be on the verge of a new wave of nuclear proliferation? A look back at the early history of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary, illuminates some reasons for concern in the Indo-Pacific today. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin recently described NATO as “the most powerful and successful alliance in history,” but the organization’s early years were not without challenges. At its inception, the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty marked a sea change in American strategic thinking. The United States had been intent on withdrawing from Europe in the years following
My wife and I spent the week in the interior of Taiwan where Shuyuan spent her childhood. In that town there is a street that functions as an open farmer’s market. Walk along that street, as Shuyuan did yesterday, and it is next to impossible to come home empty-handed. Some mangoes that looked vaguely like others we had seen around here ended up on our table. Shuyuan told how she had bought them from a little old farmer woman from the countryside who said the mangoes were from a very old tree she had on her property. The big surprise
The issue of China’s overcapacity has drawn greater global attention recently, with US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen urging Beijing to address its excess production in key industries during her visit to China last week. Meanwhile in Brussels, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last week said that Europe must have a tough talk with China on its perceived overcapacity and unfair trade practices. The remarks by Yellen and Von der Leyen come as China’s economy is undergoing a painful transition. Beijing is trying to steer the world’s second-largest economy out of a COVID-19 slump, the property crisis and
As former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrapped up his visit to the People’s Republic of China, he received his share of attention. Certainly, the trip must be seen within the full context of Ma’s life, that is, his eight-year presidency, the Sunflower movement and his failed Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement, as well as his eight years as Taipei mayor with its posturing, accusations of money laundering, and ups and downs. Through all that, basic questions stand out: “What drives Ma? What is his end game?” Having observed and commented on Ma for decades, it is all ironically reminiscent of former US president Harry