Human rights advocates yesterday urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to pardon Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順), the nation’s longest-serving death row inmate.
Representatives from Amnesty International, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) and other rights groups told a press conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that independent investigations have shown that Chiou was tortured and forced to confess to the crimes he was sentenced for.
“No one should be tortured. No one should be tried unfairly. No one should wait 33 years for justice. No one should be sentenced to death, period,” Amnesty secretary-general Agnes Callamard said via video link.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
“Dear president of Taiwan, I urge you to use your powers to make things right, to address the violations of the right to fair trials that have tainted Chiou Ho-shun’s conviction, to uphold international human rights standards ... and to accept Chiou’s petition for a pardon after 33 years of injustice,” she said.
The human rights campaigners then walked to the Presidential Office Building and handed over petition letters that included 42,700 signatures gathered in a renewed global campaign for Chiou’s release.
Amnesty International Taiwan secretary-general Chiu E-ling (邱伊翎) said that executives and secretaries-general of the group’s chapters in Australia, Spain, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal have written personal letters to Tsai to appeal for Chiou’s pardon.
“The authorities conducting the investigation used torture and inhumane treatment to force Chiou to sign the confession papers. Yet our justice system is unwilling to face its egregious errors,” TAEDP chairwoman Chang Chuan-fen (張娟芬) said.
“We still have time to appeal for this innocent man as he is still sitting on death row... We also ask the government and the justice system to seriously face the physical suffering and mental torture Chiou had been subjected to all these years, and we demand an end to it right now,” she added.
Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), who spent 21 years on death row in the Hsichih Trio case of 1991, but whose conviction was overturned and was released in 2012, presented a written statement to appeal for Chiou.
“The government must have the courage to face miscarriages of justice, of convicting innocent people, and learn” from its mistakes, Su said.
Chiou was among 12 people accused of killing insurance agent Hung Yu-lan (洪玉蘭) in Miaoli County, and kidnapping and killing nine-year-old Lu Cheng (陸正) in 1987.
After repeated appeals and retrials, Chiou was the only defendant to receive the death sentence, and has been on death row since 1989.
In 2011, the Supreme Court rejected the 11th appeal against the death sentence.
However, four independent investigations by the Control Yuan concluded that Chiou should be pardoned, as evidence showed that he did not commit the murders, and that the judicial process was flawed as the judges did not hear testimonies from key witnesses and the defendant, and did not conduct a proper review of the case during the appeals.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it