The nation was again the recipient of international criticism over the execution of six death-row inmates on Friday, the second round of executions staged in the past four months.
Friday’s executions brought the number of inmates executed under President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to 21.
A statement issued yesterday by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton deplored the execution, saying: “Taiwan’s authorities continue to act in disregard of concerns expressed worldwide.”
Ashton said she “profoundly regrets” that Taiwan has chosen to “ignore the recommendation” to introduce a moratorium on executions, which was made on March 1 by an international panel of experts convened to review Taiwan’s first human rights report.
This decision “very unfortunately confirms the deterioration of the situation” in Taiwan on the question of the death penalty, after the interruption of a four-year moratorium on executions, she said.
When publishing their observations and recommendations, the panel strongly recommended that the government intensify its efforts toward abolition of capital punishment and, as a first and decisive step, immediately introduce a moratorium on executions in accordance with the respective resolutions of the UN General Assembly.
Taiwan had observed a de facto moratorium on executions from late 2005 to April 2010.
The first execution since Ma took office in 2008 was in April 2010, followed by the executions of five inmates in March 2011, and another six in December last year.
Ashton called on the government to “end this backtracking” and to work toward a moratorium on executions with a view to abolition.
In defense of his signing the execution orders, Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) said that those executed had engaged in atrocious and cruel crimes that exhibited exceptional depravity.
Ashton said she recognized the serious nature of the crimes and expressed her sincere sympathy to the families of the victims.
“However, the EU is opposed to capital punishment in all cases without exception, and has consistently called for its universal abolition,” she said.
Ma has tried to play down his role in the executions, saying that the justice ministry has “acted in accordance with the law” and he “respected the ministry’s mandate.”
In a separate press release, Catherine Baber, Asia-Pacific program director at Amnesty International, called on Ma to impose an immediate moratorium on the use of the death penalty and to engage in a national debate about abolishing it.
“A dozen executions in Taiwan in less than six months raises serious questions about the authorities’ pledges to abolish the death penalty,” Baber said.
Amnesty said the execution on Friday was “a cruel change of heart from earlier commitments made by Taiwanese authorities to abolish the brutal practice.”
Barbara Lochbihler, chair of the the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Human Rights, also condemned the executions, according to a Central News Agency report on Friday.
Lochbihler was quoted as saying that executions serve no purpose in deterring crime, and that there is no credible evidence that the death penalty is a more effective deterrent than long-term imprisonment.
In response, Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) said yesterday that he supported the decision to carry out the execution because that “met the public’s expectation.”
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Anna Kao (高安) said the ministry has taken note of the concern expressed by the European Parliament.
It’s not yet a consensus among Taiwan public on doing away with the death penalty, Kao said, adding that relatedgovernment agencies have been directing their efforts towards reducing the use of capital punishment.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater