The death penalty debate has burst back onto Taiwan’s political agenda, costing the justice minister her job in a sign of just how sensitive the issue remains in the country.
It is more than four years since Taiwan last put someone to death, but when Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) said last week she would not order any executions during her term, she drew a storm of criticism that led to her speedy resignation.
“We have a long way to go before Taiwan formally abolishes the death penalty,” said Hsueh Chin-feng (薛欽峰), head of the Human Protection Committee at the Taipei Bar Association, which is campaigning for an end to capital punishment. “Wang’s resignation has dealt a further blow to the cause of ending capital punishment. More obstacles are emerging.”
Like many Asian countries, including Japan, Taiwan maintains the death penalty, reserving it for serious crimes such as aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery.
Opinion polls suggest widespread public approval of capital punishment, with no significant erosion of support over the years.
About 74 percent of 792 Taiwanese interviewed by the Chinese-language United Daily News last week said they supported capital punishment, against just 12 percent who opposed it.
Even so, the fact that nobody has been executed since late 2005, leaving 44 convicts in death-row limbo, reflects serious doubts among the political elite. Wang’s predecessor also opposed the death penalty.
At the same time, a number of high-profile cases may have helped lead to subtle changes in public attitudes.
One of them is the case of 37-year-old Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), who has lived under the shadow of a death sentence for a gruesome double murder for most of his adult life.
Su was originally sentenced to death in 1995 and after a series of trials, faces a further retrial ordered by the Supreme Court.
“My life has turned dark over this case. I have spent my best years locked up in a small jail cell,” he said in an interview.
Rights groups have seized on Su’s situation as an example of a flawed case, saying his initial confession was extracted under torture.
And campaigners warn of the risk of executing the innocent.
Su remembers when he was 23 and on death row, and was asked to help a convict of the same age spend the last hours before his execution.
As the young man was dragged away to be shot, he turned to Su and said: “I’m innocent.”
Among those who want to see the death penalty stay is entertainer Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰).
“If the law can’t serve as a last line of defense for the protection of good and honest citizens, we might as well just get rid of it all,” she said in a faxed statement.
Pai’s stance strikes a chord in Taiwan because her teenage daughter was kidnapped, raped and murdered in a widely publicized case in the 1990s.
Huang Juei-min (黃瑞明), a law professor at Taichung’s Providence University, is among several academics who opposes abolition.
“Those who are placed on death row have committed cruel crimes. They should face the consequences,” Huang said. “When human rights organizations are calling for protecting the rights of murderers, who cares about the families of their victims?”
Taipei, New Taipei City, Keelung and Taoyuan would issue a decision at 8pm on whether to cancel work and school tomorrow due to forecasted heavy rain, Keelung Mayor Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said today. Hsieh told reporters that absent some pressing reason, the four northern cities would announce the decision jointly at 8pm. Keelung is expected to receive between 300mm and 490mm of rain in the period from 2pm today through 2pm tomorrow, Central Weather Administration data showed. Keelung City Government regulations stipulate that school and work can be canceled if rain totals in mountainous or low-elevation areas are forecast to exceed 350mm in
EVA Airways president Sun Chia-ming (孫嘉明) and other senior executives yesterday bowed in apology over the death of a flight attendant, saying the company has begun improving its health-reporting, review and work coordination mechanisms. “We promise to handle this matter with the utmost responsibility to ensure safer and healthier working conditions for all EVA Air employees,” Sun said. The flight attendant, a woman surnamed Sun (孫), died on Friday last week of undisclosed causes shortly after returning from a work assignment in Milan, Italy, the airline said. Chinese-language media reported that the woman fell ill working on a Taipei-to-Milan flight on Sept. 22
COUNTERMEASURE: Taiwan was to implement controls for 47 tech products bound for South Africa after the latter downgraded and renamed Taipei’s ‘de facto’ offices The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still reviewing a new agreement proposed by the South African government last month to regulate the status of reciprocal representative offices, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. Asked about the latest developments in a year-long controversy over Taiwan’s de facto representative office in South Africa, Lin during a legislative session said that the ministry was consulting with legal experts on the proposed new agreement. While the new proposal offers Taiwan greater flexibility, the ministry does not find it acceptable, Lin said without elaborating. The ministry is still open to resuming retaliatory measures against South
1.4nm WAFERS: While TSMC is gearing up to expand its overseas production, it would also continue to invest in Taiwan, company chairman and CEO C.C. Wei said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has applied for permission to construct a new plant in the Central Taiwan Science Park (中部科學園區), which it would use for the production of new high-speed wafers, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council, which supervises three major science parks in Taiwan, confirmed that the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau had received an application on Friday from TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, to commence work on the new A14 fab. A14 technology, a 1.4 nanometer (nm) process, is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by enabling faster computing and greater power
RSS