A touring exhibition of works of art by people who have been on death row began yesterday at the Bopiliao Historic Block in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), with organizers inviting people to ponder inmates’ potential to change and alternatives to the death penalty.
The Not Who We Were exhibition displays more than 20 calligraphy works or paintings by 15 people, including Cheng Hsing-tse (鄭性澤), who spent 14 years behind bars until he was acquitted in 2017.
Not every prison offers art classes, but he had the opportunity to learn Chinese painting from 2014 at a prison in Taichung, Cheng told a news conference.
Photo: Sam Yeh / AFP
Some inmates sent their work to family members, but in that way, members of society would not see how they had changed, he said.
“The death penalty is not the only way to solve problems. I hope people can see the possibilities for inmates who are sentenced to death,” he said.
The exhibition features a simulated prison ward of 1.368 ping (4.5m2) with one toilet and two beds.
Some people say that inmates live a comfortable life, but the simulated cell shows that the walled space with only one window is very narrow, Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty executive director Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡) said.
Death row inmates are usually known for their worst acts, but few know how they can transform after being in prison, Lin said.
The exhibition aims to encourage people to see the possibility of change in inmates and how that might be prompted through social assistance, she said.
Trade Office of Swiss Industries deputy director Beatrice Latteier, who also attended the opening, said she is impressed by the artwork and wished she could read the calligraphic characters so she could understand the creators’ mindsets.
“For Switzerland, the promotion of human rights is an important concern and a foreign policy goal. The death penalty is against human rights and is neither a deterrent nor does it contribute to reconciliation,” Latteier said.
Hopefully, Taiwanese society would be open to discuss the abolition of capital punishment, with both sides willing to communicate, she said.
The exhibition in Taipei runs through July 26 and would travel to Miaoli County from Aug. 1 to 9 and to Tainan from Aug. 22 to Sept. 3.
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires