The European Parliament has urged Taiwan and neighboring Japan and South Korea to abolish capital punishment, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a press release yesterday.
The Strasbourg-based European assembly on June 13 passed a resolution urging the abolition of capital punishment in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, the parliament's record showed.
The resolution specifically encouraged the European Commission and the European Council of Ministers "to give priority to [the] abolition of capital punishment in its relations with Japan, South Korea and Taiwan."
The assembly also expressed its support of numerous initiatives for the abolition of capital punishment in the three countries, including several legislative initiatives.
The resolution urged these countries "to renew their efforts to achieve rapid abolition of capital punishment or the introduction of a moratorium on executions."
In the case of Taiwan, the resolution said the assembly welcomed various legal reforms, such as changes to Taiwan's penal code and "in particular, abolition of a mandatory death penalty for various violent crimes."
The non-binding resolution also welcomed Minister of Justice Chen Ding-Nan's (
The European Parliament, however, expressed concern about "the very harsh conditions of imprisonment of those sentenced to death in those countries and, in particular, the fact that they are kept in almost total isolation."
The document then denounced what it said was "the large number of legal errors which have come to light regarding death sentences."
Meanwhile, the resolution urged the European Parliament's committee on foreign affairs, human rights, common security and defense policy to hold a seminar on the abolition of capital punishment in the democratic countries of Asia.
According to the parliament's Web site, other resolutions passed on the same day addressed various human rights issues in other countries -- including Equatorial Guinea, Belarus, Syria and Malaysia.
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