Hsu Tzu-chiang has been sentenced to death eight times over the past 14 years in a case human rights lawyers say is a textbook example of what’s wrong with the death penalty system in Taiwan. Celia Llopis-Jepsen spoke with him for 20 minutes at the Taipei Detention Center on Friday
By Celia Llopis-jepsen, STAFF REPORTER Taipei Times, Sunday, Dec 20, 2009, Page 13
On the street outside Taipei Detention Center are small food stalls selling large dishes of food. Full meals, not snacks. The dishes aren’t for passersby; they’re for inmates. Family and friends can bring a meal to the people they visit.
On World Day Against the Death Penalty yesterday, anti-capital punishment and education reform activists urged the government to introduce the debate on death penalty in schools so that students could start thinking about controversial issues early.
“When we try to promote abolition of the death penalty, we often run into supporters of capital punishment who refuse to talk to us at all,” Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty executive director Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
