Yesterday, as Indonesia increased security ahead of the execution of the three Islamic militants convicted in the 2002 Bali bombings, a seminar in Taipei brought French and Taiwanese legal specialists together to discuss how Taiwan can continue its path toward abolishing capital punishment.
The carnage wrought by the terrorists behind the bombings, in which 202 people were killed, was an unspeakable crime.
It may seem difficult in this context to argue for the abolition of the death penalty, but the message at yesterday’s forum was clear: The death penalty is a violation of human rights, illegal in all cases under international law.
Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) yesterday attended the forum, which she described as her “duty.”
Wang has repeatedly stated her opposition to the death penalty. She is the third in a line of ministers of justice who have spoken out against capital punishment, making it clear that Taiwan should take the path of the majority of countries that have abolished the penalty in law or in practice.
In the case of the Bali bombers, the uselessness of the death penalty is crystal-clear: No penalty can make reparations for the massive loss of innocent lives that has and will continue to torment the family members of the victims.
Meanwhile, it is unlikely that the executions will deter similar crimes, which is one of the most often cited — and often disproved — arguments for capital punishment. On the contrary, the bombers have not repented and see themselves as martyrs, while the Indonesian government is bracing for potential retribution attacks by terrorist networks. The Australian and US embassies, meanwhile, have received bomb threats.
In this case, the death penalty serves no helpful purpose to society and may even increase the wrath of extremists who have no qualms about taking innocent lives.
At yesterday’s forum, a man stood up and told the speakers: “We want real human rights, not fake human rights.”
When a terrible crime is committed, killing the perpetrator amounts to respecting the rights of the victim, he argued.
His opinion reflects one of two main obstacles to moving public opinion in Taiwan and other retentionist countries: the belief that vengeance and justice are one and the same. In a modern justice system, however, revenge has no place.
The other barrier is the belief that the death penalty is necessary for public safety, a claim that collapses under scrutiny.
With the government repeatedly arguing that winning over public support is crucial to abolishing the death penalty, these are the deeply entrenched attitudes that Wang will have to tackle.
The experiences of countries like France, which abolished capital punishment long ago, have a definite role to play in revealing misconceptions about capital punishment.
Although it is unlikely that Taiwan will see legislation any time soon abolishing the death penalty, the Ministry of Justice can, like dozens of other retentionist countries, choose not to execute any of the prisoners on death row.
Taiwan’s last execution was in 2005. In the meantime, interested parties should take an aggressive stance on the issue, educating prosecutors and the public, tackling problems with the judicial process and challenging the assumption that an eye for an eye amounts to justice.
The conflict in the Middle East has been disrupting financial markets, raising concerns about rising inflationary pressures and global economic growth. One market that some investors are particularly worried about has not been heavily covered in the news: the private credit market. Even before the joint US-Israeli attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, global capital markets had faced growing structural pressure — the deteriorating funding conditions in the private credit market. The private credit market is where companies borrow funds directly from nonbank financial institutions such as asset management companies, insurance companies and private lending platforms. Its popularity has risen since
The Donald Trump administration’s approach to China broadly, and to cross-Strait relations in particular, remains a conundrum. The 2025 US National Security Strategy prioritized the defense of Taiwan in a way that surprised some observers of the Trump administration: “Deterring a conflict over Taiwan, ideally by preserving military overmatch, is a priority.” Two months later, Taiwan went entirely unmentioned in the US National Defense Strategy, as did military overmatch vis-a-vis China, giving renewed cause for concern. How to interpret these varying statements remains an open question. In both documents, the Indo-Pacific is listed as a second priority behind homeland defense and
Every analyst watching Iran’s succession crisis is asking who would replace supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Yet, the real question is whether China has learned enough from the Persian Gulf to survive a war over Taiwan. Beijing purchases roughly 90 percent of Iran’s exported crude — some 1.61 million barrels per day last year — and holds a US$400 billion, 25-year cooperation agreement binding it to Tehran’s stability. However, this is not simply the story of a patron protecting an investment. China has spent years engineering a sanctions-evasion architecture that was never really about Iran — it was about Taiwan. The
After “Operation Absolute Resolve” to capture former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, the US joined Israel on Saturday last week in launching “Operation Epic Fury” to remove Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his theocratic regime leadership team. The two blitzes are widely believed to be a prelude to US President Donald Trump changing the geopolitical landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, targeting China’s rise. In the National Security Strategic report released in December last year, the Trump administration made it clear that the US would focus on “restoring American pre-eminence in the Western hemisphere,” and “competing with China economically and militarily
RSS