國內新聞

Forty death row inmates might be executed
2010/05/29

The Constitutional Court on Friday rejected an application for a constitutional interpretation submitted by a group advocating the end of the death penalty, paving the way for the execution of the 40 convicts on death row. The first ones could be killed as soon as next week after four executions took place in late April — the first since December 2005.

ANALYSIS: Taiwan urged to rethink resumption of death penalty
WORRYING TWIST: Moves by the Ma administration were a ‘shock’ to the international community, which was optimistic the nation would move toward abolition, a group says
By Shih Hsiu-chuan, STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Mar 29, 2010, Page 3, Taipei Times

Having observed a de facto moratorium on executions since late 2005, Taiwan now finds itself being closely scrutinized by international human rights groups, as a resumption of executions appears imminent.

Despite mounting pressure in the form of petitions and requests to meet officials where several have been urged to stand firm on Taiwan’s stated goal of abolishing the death penalty, it seems increasingly likely that the government is prepared to ignore the global trend to abolition in the face of a public that continues to support executions.

Rights covenants still little understood
LAW OF THE LAND: Many of Taiwan旧 policies and laws contravene two human rights covenants that were signed into law that mandate abolishing the death penalty
By Loa Iok-sin, STAFF REPORTER
Monday, Mar 22, 2010, Page 3

Despite ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Social and Cultural Rights (ICSCR), and the legislature’s passage of a law to make them legally binding, human rights activists, lawyers and students who attended a workshop on their implementation yesterday said that most of the nation’s officials and politicians still don’t know much about them.

Taiwan must not go back to death road
Taiwan News
Page 9
2010-03-12 12:00 AM    

http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1201097&lang=eng_news&cate_img=46.jpg&cate_rss=news_Editorial

President Ma Ying-jeou has again displayed his lack of political leadership and courage by failing to stand up for Justice Minister Wang Ching-feng, a long time advocate of the abolishment of the death penalty, now that she has come under severe pressure for her firm stance not to implement death sentences.

Wang is not the first justice minister to refuse to sign death sentence orders as the current string of four years in which no death sentence has been executed began in 2006 under the former Democratic Progressive Party president Chen Shui-bian and then justice minister Shih Mao-lin.

When justice minister in 1997, Ma himself refused to sign order for the execution of the so-called "Hsichih Trio," three youths who charged that their confessions to a 1992 murder charge for which they received the death sentence had been extracted by police through torture.

The reasons for their actions include both the growing global consensus to abolish the death penalty as a "cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment" and to uphold the principle that "every human being has the inherent right to life."