Amnesty International yesterday renewed its call on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to abolish the death penalty.
Speaking at a press conference in Taipei to mark the group’s annual report on executions, Roseann Rife, deputy program director for Amnesty’s Asia-Pacific office, said: “Amnesty International reiterated to President Ma Ying-jeou that we look to Taiwan to also be a leader in the region and help influence China and Japan to take similar steps.”
Amnesty International secretary-general Claudio Cordone wrote to Ma earlier this month to make a similar appeal.
Rife’s appeal came as the nation looks likely to execute the first of its 44 inmates on death row later this year. There has not been an execution since late 2005.
The issue of whether to abolish the death penalty resurfaced recently after minister of justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) was forced to resign because of reactions to a statement in which she made clear her support for the abolition of the death penalty and refused to sign off on outstanding execution orders.
Her successor, Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), said he would have no problem signing execution orders once all procedures have been completed.
At the press conference yesterday, Rife said that in many countries, death sentences are often the result of flawed legal procedures.
Many defendants are too poor to hire attorneys and court-appointed lawyers are often inexperienced or have heavy workloads, which is unfair to the defendants.
The rights group also urged Ma to follow the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (公民與政治權利國際公約及經濟社會文化權利國際公約) — which was signed by him last year and is now in force — to protect human rights by abolishing the death penalty.
In its annual report, Amnesty said that China, which uses the death penalty as a political weapon, had the highest number of executions last year.
The report shows that as of last year, 95 countries abolished the death penalty.
Although 58 countries have yet to abolish the death penalty, only 18 performed executions last year.
This was the first year Amnesty disregarded official information published by the Chinese government, which does not release exact figures because “executions are still kept as state secrets in China,” Rife said.
The rights group alleges that the actual number of executions in China last year — estimated to be in the thousands — far exceeds the official figures released by Beijing.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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
The Central Emergency Operations Center (CEOC) has made a three-phased compulsory evacuation plan for Hualien County’s Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) disaster zone ahead of the potential formation of a typhoon. The plan includes mandatory vertical evacuation using air-raid-style alarms if needed, CEOC chief coordinator Chi Lien-cheng (季連成) told a news conference in the county yesterday. Volunteers would be prohibited from entering the disaster area starting tomorrow, the retired general said. The first phase would be relocating vulnerable residents, including elderly people, disabled people, pregnant women and dialysis patients, in shelters and hospitals, he said. The second phase would be mandatory evacuation of residents living in
RSS