More than 400 human rights defenders from all over the world gathered in Taipei from Monday to yesterday to discuss how to confront challenges to the universality of human rights. It was the first time in its nearly 100-year history that the Congress of the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) was held in Asia.
The issue was front and center on the agenda as death row exoneree Hsu Tzu-chiang (徐自強) gave his powerful testimony during Monday morning’s opening ceremony — application of the death penalty is clearly inconsistent with international human rights standards.
I sat next to President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) as Hsu told us of how he was sentenced to death in 1996 and incarcerated for 16 years before he was released in 2012.
Hsu also told the story of 60-year-old Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順), who was sentenced to death in 1989 for murder, following an extremely flawed and unfair trial. Chiou has been behind bars for 31 years, the last eight of which have been on death row.
That afternoon, I headed an FIDH international delegation that visited the Taipei Detention Center, where Chiou is incarcerated. Our delegation also saw the execution site, and held a productive meeting with prison authorities and officials from the Agency of Corrections.
I cannot hide that spending time at the execution site was among the darkest and most important moments of my human rights work.
Chiou, along with 22 other death row inmates at the detention center, could be executed at any time. The detention center told us that death row inmates receive 30 minutes’ notice before being taken to the facility’s execution site. In many cases, family members are only informed after the execution, which is carried out by being shot to death with a handgun.
Hearing about Chiou’s judicial odyssey and the visit to the detention center reaffirmed my conviction that the death penalty is a cruel and barbaric punishment that violates every aspect of human dignity. I find it difficult to reconcile that a modern and vibrant democracy like Taiwan retains such an outdated and inhumane practice.
At the very least, Tsai should establish an immediate moratorium on all executions as a key step toward the complete abolition of capital punishment. Chiou and all other death row inmates in Taiwan should no longer live in fear of a looming execution.
When it comes to human rights, Taiwan has shown that it can be a pioneer. Earlier this year, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage. The nation now has an opportunity to demonstrate that it can be a regional human rights leader by abolishing capital punishment.
It is true that important changes often provoke feelings of insecurity among societies. Yet, Taiwanese have nothing to fear from the abolition of the death penalty. When then-French president Francois Mitterrand abolished the death penalty in 1981, public opinion was not in favor of the move. Today in France, no one is in favor of reintroducing the death penalty, apart from followers of the far-right.
Generally, in countries that have abolished the death penalty, public opinion has never demanded a reintroduction of capital punishment, because citizens realize that its abolition changes nothing in their daily lives. Without the death penalty, Taiwan will only be a more just and rights-respecting country.
I sincerely hope that holding the FIDH congress in Taiwan has created the momentum needed to create a society that is more respectful of human dignity.
It is all about dignity. How can you teach that killing is wrong by killing?
Dimitris Christopoulos is the president of the International Federation for Human Rights.
In the event of a war with China, Taiwan has some surprisingly tough defenses that could make it as difficult to tackle as a porcupine: A shoreline dotted with swamps, rocks and concrete barriers; conscription for all adult men; highways and airports that are built to double as hardened combat facilities. This porcupine has a soft underbelly, though, and the war in Iran is exposing it: energy. About 39,000 ships dock at Taiwan’s ports each year, more than the 30,000 that transit the Strait of Hormuz. About one-fifth of their inbound tonnage is coal, oil, refined fuels and liquefied natural gas (LNG),
To counter the CCP’s escalating threats, Taiwan must build a national consensus and demonstrate the capability and the will to fight. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) often leans on a seductive mantra to soften its threats, such as “Chinese do not kill Chinese.” The slogan is designed to frame territorial conquest (annexation) as a domestic family matter. A look at the historical ledger reveals a different truth. For the CCP, being labeled “family” has never been a guarantee of safety; it has been the primary prerequisite for state-sanctioned slaughter. From the forced starvation of 150,000 civilians at the Siege of Changchun
The two major opposition parties, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), jointly announced on Tuesday last week that former TPP lawmaker Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) would be their joint candidate for Chiayi mayor, following polling conducted earlier this month. It is the first case of blue-white (KMT-TPP) cooperation in selecting a joint candidate under an agreement signed by their chairpersons last month. KMT and TPP supporters have blamed their 2024 presidential election loss on failing to decide on a joint candidate, which ended in a dramatic breakdown with participants pointing fingers, calling polls unfair, sobbing and walking
In recent weeks, Taiwan has witnessed a surge of public anxiety over the possible introduction of Indian migrant workers. What began as a policy signal from the Ministry of Labor quickly escalated into a broader controversy. Petitions gathered thousands of signatures within days, political figures issued strong warnings, and social media became saturated with concerns about public safety and social stability. At first glance, this appears to be a straightforward policy question: Should Taiwan introduce Indian migrant workers or not? However, this framing is misleading. The current debate is not fundamentally about India. It is about Taiwan’s labor system, its
RSS