A state’s civil servants being asked to take the lives of others is something that should be seriously thought about in a democratic, highly developed and civilized country such as Taiwan, Vivien Stern, a member of the British House of Lords, told reporters in Taipei yesterday.
“At least, some thought should be given to what is being asked of a state’s [civil] servants to take another human being to where [that person] is going to be killed,” Stern said.
Stern, along with Richard Faulkner, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary British-Taiwan Group, are on a three-day visit to Taipei.
They have been meeting with local politicians and representatives of non-governmental organizations to discuss the death penalty issue. They also toured the Taipei Detention Center, including the execution chamber, and met with members of its staff.
Taipei Detention Center employees said the most difficult part of their jobs was to take part in executions, Stern said.
“We all agree it’s extremely difficult,” she said.
In the UK, where no execution has been carried out since 1965, prison staff had been among the activists leading the movement for the abolishment of the death penalty and a number of them said that they would leave their jobs if a bill to end the death penalty was not passed by the British parliament, Stern said.
Britain eventually abolished the death penalty in 1969 at a time when there was a strong belief in social justice politically, and two miscarriages of justice created a climate favorable for abolition, she said.
Even though the drive to abolish the death penalty in the UK came from the parliament, not from the public, nowadays, only a minority of the British public, 48 percent, are in favor of retaining capital punishment, Stern said, citing the results of a survey conducted about three months ago.
She said she understood that in Taiwan, public opinion polls that show about 80 percent of the public favor retaining the death penalty are cited as a rationale for making abolishing capital punishment a long-term objective of the government, but “those polls don’t go very deep.”
It is very important for Taiwan to abolish the death penalty because Taiwan is a very important democracy that has a clear commitment to human rights, she said.
“If the use of the death penalty can be reduced and eventually abolished, it would be a great encouragement to all the countries that support and value Taiwan and would be a very useful model for other countries in the region,” Stern said.
Taiwan is on the road towards abolition, Stern said.
“Change is slow, but coming. What is needed is debate. Discussion about its implications from all experts would open up people’s thinking and public opinion would become more informed,” she said.
Stern is a longtime proponent of judicial and penal reform in the UK, having served as director of the NACRO criminal justice charity and secretary-general of Penal Reform International for many years.
She has also written several books, including Bricks of Shame: Britain’s Prisons, Creating Criminals: Prisons and People in a Market Society and A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World, and is a well-known speaker on prison reform.
She became a life peer, the Baroness Stern of Vauxhall, in 1999.
Additional reporting by Diane Baker
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai