People throughout the world and Taiwan celebrated the ninth World Day against the Death Penalty yesterday by calling on governments still using the death penalty to stop executions and join the global trend toward the abolition of corporal punishment.
People are carrying on the fight in the name of Troy Davis, who, in spite of worldwide campaigns, was executed in the US on Sept. 21. In a conversation with Amnesty International shortly before his death, he reminded the world that: “The struggle for justice doesn’t end with me. This struggle is for all the Troy Davises who came before me and all the ones who will come after me.”
Taiwan’s Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順) might be one of those. He has spent more than 20 years on death row, and like Davis, there are also doubts about the case against him. Davis was sentenced to death in 1991 for the murder of off-duty police officer Mark MacPhail in Savannah, Georgia. The case against Davis primarily rested on witness testimony. Since his 1991 trial, seven of nine key prosecution witnesses recanted or changed their testimony, some alleging police coercion.
Chiou and his co-defendants say they were held incommunicado for the first four months of their detention and they were tortured to make them confess to the kidnapping and killing of Lu Cheng (陸正) and the murder of Ko Hung Yu-lan (柯洪玉蘭). They later retracted their confessions. In 1994, after an official investigation, two public prosecutors and 10 police officers handling the case were convicted of extracting confessions through torture.
However, the death penalty is irrevocable. Taiwan knows this all too well. In February, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) apologized for the execution of an innocent man in 1997, former airman Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶).
More countries realize every year that the only way to ensure mistakes like this are never made is to abolish the death penalty. The death penalty has been legally or practically abolished by 139 countries. Of the remaining 58 retentionist countries, only 23 committed an execution last year.
Last year, more states than ever before voted at the UN in favor of a worldwide moratorium on executions and this year in the US, Illinois became the 16th state to abolish the death penalty.
In Taiwan, last year’s four executions and the five this year stand in stark, disturbing contrast to the rising tide of world opinion in favor of abolition.
Countries that insist on using the death penalty continue to say they use it only in accordance with international law. However, most of their actions blatantly contradict these claims. It is often imposed after unfair trials and based on confessions extracted through torture. It is often used against political opponents, poor people and other marginalized groups. It is sometimes even used against people who allegedly committed crimes when they were under the age of 18 or who have significant mental impairments.
Taiwan acts contrary to international law because it provides no procedure that would allow people sentenced to death to seek a pardon or commutation of the sentence — a right recognized by the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Taiwan has legally committed to implement.
Taiwan was once considered a leader in Asia in the movement to abolish the death penalty, but the recent executions are a step backward. If Taiwan is really committed to ending executions, then it should start by commuting the death sentences of all people currently threatened with execution.
The struggle for abolition continues in the name of Davis, Chiang, Chiou and all the others facing execution around the world.
Roseann Rife is head of special projects and global thematic issues at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat.
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