The abolition of capital punishment is not a government policy, but care must be taken to ensure full compliance with the law in administering the death sentence, Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said yesterday.
The debate over capital punishment has again waded into public discourse following a series of murders over the past few months, including three gruesome cases of dismemberment in northern Taiwan in less than a month.
Several political pundits and social commentators have attributed the murders and brutal deaths to support for the abolition of capital punishment by the government and Ministry of Justice officials.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
“Abolishing capital punishment is not a Ministry of Justice policy at this time,” Chiu said.
“There had been a number of serious cases for which we thank the police for their swift investigation, which has helped ease public fears as the suspects have been placed under detention,” he said.
“Prosecutors have put a lot of effort to investigate and gather evidence. It is of utmost importance that these cases be solved promptly and proceeded to trial without delay,” he added.
Abolishing capital punishment is not on the agenda, but care must be taken when the ministry has to deal with the execution of a death sentence, Chiu said.
“The ministry has to go through the legal procedures when called upon to administer the death sentence, and we have to follow the procedures every step of the way,” he added.
Chiu acknowledged the level of public anger in the face of the killings.
“Nonetheless, these cases have to go through the courts. We cannot execute a suspect before the legal procedures have been followed through,” he said.
Families of the female victims who were dismembered have demanded that their killers be put to death.
One woman was allegedly killed by her archery teacher at the Huashan Grassland (華山大草原) in Taipei, while another was allegedly murdered by her boyfriend, a fitness coach, in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋).
Social commentators, such as Lucifer Chu (朱學恆), have been vocal on media talk shows, decrying the perceived leniency shown by the justice system to convicted killers, but having little concern for the victims and their suffering.
Chu called for stronger punishment in murder cases, adding that the ministry must carry out capital punishment as a deterrent to crime.
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