Death penalty is back, five inmates executed last Friday
Taipei (AsiaNews) – Despite appeals by the Catholic Church and local and international NGOs, Taiwanese authorities executed five death-row inmates, ending an 11-month hiatus on capital punishment.
Taiwan’s Justice Ministry said in a statement that five prisoners were executed Friday evening after Minister Tseng Yung-fu signed their execution decrees earlier in the day. Two were executed in Taipei City, two in Kaohsiung City and one in Taichung City.
The executions come less than a year after the ministry resumed enforcing capital punishment verdicts last April following an unofficial moratorium put in place in 2005.
The resumption of the practice was widely criticised by the international community, including Amnesty International and the European Union, as well as local NGO groups such as the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
The Chinese Regional Bishops’ Conference had issued a statement on the death penalty on 13 April 2010, saying that throughout its 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church had deeply felt how, for humanity, the termination of life, whether willingly or unwillingly, was an infinite loss and source of sorrow.
“In order to promote social harmony and maintain a culture of goodness and kindness, the Chinese Catholic Bishops’ Conference” has again expressed its support for “the abolition of the death penalty.” Hence, it “appeals to everybody to be aware of the dignity and sacredness of life,” encouraging them “to protect and treasure it.”
The bishops want “the government and the people to consider the abolition of the death penalty”. Whilst waiting for its complete abolition, they urge the authorities to suspend the practice.
For the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, people on death row should not be executed until a review of the death penalty has been completed.
In its statement, the Justice Ministry also released the names of the five inmates. They are Guang Chung-yen, Wang Kuo-hua, Chung Teh-shu, Wang Chih-huang and Chuang Tien-chu.
After Friday's executions, 40 convicts are still on death row, according to official sources.
The last time the death penalty was carried out was on 30 April 2010, when four prisoners were executed.
Justice Minister Tseng told legislators during a recent hearing in parliament that his ministry had taken a cautious approach to carrying out the death penalty and that it would only carry out the sentence if the inmate exhausted all legal avenues for an appeal, such as filing an extraordinary appeal, a retrial and asking for a constitutional interpretation.
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