Supporters and opponents of the death penalty made their arguments for and against the practice yesterday at a hearing organized by the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) in Taipei County.
Panelist Bill Hsu (許福生), a law professor at Central Police University, said the death penalty should be maintained.
“I spent plenty of time interviewing Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興) in prison ... learning why people like him should be separated from society forever,” he said.
Chen, who abducted and murdered TV hostess Pai Ping-ping’s (白冰冰) 17-year-old daughter Pai Hsiao-yen (白曉燕) in 1997, was convicted of kidnapping and other charges in January 1998 and executed the following year.
Academia Sinica research fellow Chiu Hei-yuan (瞿海源) said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) and Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) all said abolition of the death penalty was the nation’s long-term goal, but because public opinion supports continuing executions, the government would not abolish the death penalty for now.
Chiu said public opinion was only an excuse, as the government is reluctant to push its own policy.
Public opinion is dynamic and complicated, he said, adding that polls have shown that 53 percent of the public support replacing executions with life imprisonment without parole, while 60 percent support people on death row not being executed if they reflect upon and regret their crime.
Attorney Hsu Wen-bin (許文彬) said opponents say that although abolition of the death penalty is an international trend and reflects progress in human rights, countries have different values and we do not have to take into account what other countries think because Taiwanese support retaining the death penalty.
Attorney and executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正) said the death penalty has to be abolished because of incorrect verdicts.
Amnesty International statistics show 130 people were wrongly executed in the US since 1980.
National Chiao Tung University law professor Carol Lin (林志潔) said life imprisonment without parole is more inhumane than execution because it is against human nature for people to live in a confined space.
National Taiwan University law professor Lee Mau-sheng (李茂生) said using the death penalty to maintain social order or deter violent crimes are illusions because since Taiwan began handing down fewer death sentences and not executing people, violent crime has not increased.
Most people at the hearing, however, supported the death penalty.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
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