The government’s justification for executing four death row inmates last month — that it had to uphold the law — was untenable, EU representative to Taiwan Guy Ledoux said yesterday, as he continued to urge Taiwan to resume its moratorium on the death penalty.
“Many countries have unwritten moratoriums. For example, South Korea ... for the last 13 years there hasn’t been any execution [in the country],” Ledoux, the head of the European Economic and Trade Office, said yesterday.
Having followed the issue since former minister of justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) resigned on March 11 because of public opposition to her anti-capital punishment position, Ledoux had expressed concern to Executive Yuan Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森) and Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫), Wang’s successor, before the four were executed on April 30.
On Thursday, Ledoux went to see Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
Saying “it was unfortunate that our call hadn’t been heard [before the execution],” Ledoux added that he “asked [Wang] again to resume the moratorium on the death penalty.”
Ledoux said that he cited South Korea as an example during talks with Taiwanese officials, “because it takes place in Northeast Asia, so it cannot be said that the Asian approach is different.”
He made the remarks to reporters while attending the 2010 Forum of Perspectives on Economic and Trade Relations between the EU and Taiwan.
Following the executions, the EU issued two statements calling on Taiwanese authorities to resume the moratorium that had been in place since 2005 and to take steps toward eventual abolition.
One came from the high representative of the EU for foreign affairs and security policy and the vice president of the European Commission, and the other from the president and vice president of the Subcommittee on Human Rights of the European Parliament.
Asked whether the EU would take concrete action to push Taiwan to abolish the death penalty, Ledoux said that “we will certainly continue to encourage Taiwan to go back to the de facto moratorium and stop further executions.”
In response to a question on possible repercussions for EU-Taiwan relations if Taiwan continues to execute the 40 inmates who remain on death row, Ledoux said that it would affect the EU’s perception of the country’s achievements in democracy and human rights.
“Taiwan is viewed in Europe as a place with democracy and respect for human rights. Of course resumption of the death penalty and executions would affect this perception of the high standards of Taiwan’s democracy and human rights,” he said.
Ledoux said that European statistics clearly demonstrated that the death penalty did not serve as a deterrent.
“Even when the death penalty was abolished, criminality didn’t increase at all. So I don’t think there’s any connection between the death penalty and security of the citizens,” he said.
“On the contrary, I think as you might have miscarriages of justice, the fact that the death penalty still exists could mean that any citizen could be unfairly executed. I think that’s something that we need to avoid,” Ledoux said.
Later yesterday, when asked to respond to Ledoux, Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) appealed for more time to reach a public consensus on abolishing capital punishment.
“We have not wavered from pursuing the ideal of human rights, and we also signed [two UN] covenants on human rights, which showed that we attach great importance to human rights … [but] regarding a moratorium on, or abolition of, the death penalty, we need a higher degree of consensus,” Yang said.
There was no sign a consensus could be reached among the public to do away with the death penalty, said Yang, adding that in polls more than 70 percent of the people supported executions.
“Friends in Europe should be able to understand [the situation in Taiwan] as they took a long time to achieve universal abolition of the death penalty,” Yang said.
“We will gradually move toward the goal everyone wants to achieve,” Yang said.
Yang said that the ministry did not know in advance of the executions of the four inmates, which were carried out at 7:30pm on April 30, but had ordered the overseas offices to clearly explain the government’s position on the matter to EU countries.
The US-Japan joint statement released on Friday not mentioning the “one China” policy might be a sign that US President Donald Trump intends to decouple US-China relations from Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said. Following Trump’s meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba on Friday, the US and Japan issued a joint statement where they reaffirmed the importance of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait and support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations. Trump has not personally brought up the “one China” policy in more than a year, National Taiwan University Department of Political Science Associate Professor Chen Shih-min (陳世民)
‘NEVER!’ Taiwan FactCheck Center said it had only received donations from the Open Society Foundations, which supports nonprofits that promote democratic values Taiwan FactCheck Center (TFC) has never received any donation from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a cofounder of the organization wrote on his Facebook page on Sunday. The Taipei-based organization was established in 2018 by Taiwan Media Watch Foundation and the Association of Quality Journalism to monitor and verify news and information accuracy. It was officially registered as a foundation in 2021. National Chung Cheng University communications professor Lo Shih-hung (羅世宏), a cofounder and chairman of TFC, was responding to online rumors that the TFC receives funding from the US government’s humanitarian assistance agency via the Open Society Foundations (OSF),
ANNUAL LIGHT SHOW: The lanterns are exhibited near Taoyuan’s high-speed rail station and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the airport MRT line More than 400 lanterns are to be on display at the annual Taiwan Lantern Festival, which officially starts in Taoyuan today. The city is hosting the festival for the second time — the first time was in 2016. The Tourism Administration held a rehearsal of the festival last night. Chunghwa Telecom donated the main lantern of the festival to the Taoyuan City Government. The lanterns are exhibited in two main areas: near the high-speed rail (HSR) station in Taoyuan, which is at the A18 station of the Taoyuan Airport MRT, and around the Taoyuan Sports Park Station of the MRT
An alleged US government plan to encourage Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) to form a joint venture with Intel to boost US chipmaking would place the Taiwanese foundry giant in a more disadvantageous position than proposed tariffs on imported chips, a semiconductor expert said yesterday. If TSMC forms a joint venture with its US rival, it faces the risk of technology outflow, said Liu Pei-chen (劉佩真), a researcher at the Taiwan Industry Economics Database of the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research. A report by international financial services firm Baird said that Asia semiconductor supply chain talks suggest that the US government would