Although more than 70% of Taiwanese support capital punishment, debate about it came to the fore this year when president Ma Ying-jeou apologized in January for the wrongful execution of a soldier for the murder of a child in 1996. The government also executed five prisoners without notifying their families in March.
The executions attracted condemnation from the European Union and advocacy groups, and marked the second time Taiwan executed convicts following an informal four-year moratorium.
In Asia, the latest controversy over the use of the death penalty erupted not in mainland China but across the strait in Taiwan. In January, the defense ministry there was forced to issue a public apology for a wrongful execution in 1997, followed in early March by the execution of five prisoners without notifying their families.
Advocacy groups decried the executions, the European Union expressed its revulsion, and protests broke out. Taiwan's leadership has responded defiantly. In late March, President Ma Ying-jeou announced that Taiwan would keep carrying out executions of death row inmates as its laws mandate but that the government, which has reduced the use of the death penalty, maintains a policy to phase it out through existing laws and regulations-as in the recent replacement of mandated death sentences with discretionary sentencing.
