Clad in black T-shirts with “gross injustice” written across their chests, about 30 supporters of capital punishment rallied in front of the Judicial Yuan yesterday to protest several recent court decisions, which they say failed to deliver justice for murdered children and their families.
Led by Taiwan Children’s Rights Association director-general Wang Wei-chun (王薇君), the protesters voiced their discontent with three recent court rulings regarding crimes of a grisly nature, demanding capital punishment.
The three cases include a ruling that sentenced Tseng Wen-ching (曾文欽) to life in prison for killing a fifth-grade student by slitting his throat; another life prison sentence for Huang Wen-jing (黃文進), who allegedly raped, gassed and murdered a college student after swindling NT$5 million (US$165,000) from her through blackmail; and an eight-year sentence for a man surnamed Chiu (邱), who reportedly tortured to death the five-year-old daughter of his coworker.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
The protesters draped large banners across barricades in front of the judicial building, chanting: “All shall refuse to feed criminals who torture and murder children.”
“Our judicial system has been kidnapped by a small handful of human rights groups,” Wang said as she accused the Ministry of Justice and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of inaction. “If you don’t interfere with unfair court rulings, what do the people want you for?”
Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪) on Wednesday said she respected the court’s verdict on Tseng. Luo said although she was personally against the death penalty as a Buddhist, she also acknowledged it received support from a majority of Taiwanese.
Protesters hurled water balloons toward the steps of the Judicial Yuan, in a symbolic gesture to “cleanse the blood of children passed away.”
One protester surnamed Chuang (莊) said that court rulings in Taiwan have long been far too lenient on criminals.
“I think the sentences should be harsher. Basically, a life should be exchanged for a life,” Chuang said.
Wu Hsiao-ping (吳小平), section chief of the Judicial Yuan’s criminal department, received the group’s complaints, saying that the government has heard their concerns.
Wang’s nephew was Wang Hao (王昊), a toddler who died after horrific abuse two years ago. The child’s torturers allegedly used hammers to break his limbs and used pliers to rip off his nails.
After a temporary moratorium from 2006 to 2009, Taiwan reimplemented capital punishment in 2010, with between four and six executions carried out each year since then.
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
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
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