The public remained divided on capital punishment yesterday as proponents of the death penalty questioned Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng’s (王清峰) insistence on suspending executions, while opponents voiced their support.
A number of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators and family members of murder victims yesterday accused Wang of being “incompetent.”
At a press conference at the legislature, KMT lawmaker Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) urged Wang to step down over her refusal to approve execution for 44 prisoners on death row.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
“Do you have any idea how many lives these 44 prisoners took away? They killed 71 people. So if Minister Wang were willing to go to hell for the 44 people on death row, who should go to hell for the 71 lives?” Wu asked, adding that Wang should resign and run for legislator if she would like to abolish the death penalty.
Television hostess Pai Ping-ping (白冰冰) was one of those asking Wang to step down. Pai’s 17-year-old daughter Pai Hsiao-yen (白曉燕) was abducted and murdered by gang members in 1997. The main suspect in the case, Chen Chin-hsing (陳進興) was convicted of kidnapping and other charges in January 1998 and executed the following year.
“The punishment nowadays is humane enough, unlike [those who inflicted the harm], who took other peoples’ lives in an inhumane manner,” she told the press conference.
Pai and Lu Chin-te (陸晉德) — father of 10-year-old Lu Cheng (陸正), who was kidnapped in Hsinchu in 1987, but whose body was never found — called Wang incompetent and urged voters to boycott those in favor of abolishing capital punishment in the year-end city and county chief elections and the next presidential poll.
Pai said the death penalty deterred violent crime and a decision to abolish it would harm crime victims.
“If President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government allows Wang’s decision to stand, voters nationwide should boycott this government with their votes,” Pai said.
Meanwhile, human rights activists, lawyers and representatives from various religions voiced their support for Wang’s stay of executions.
“Wang actually made it clear when she was sworn in as the Minister of Justice that she would not approve any execution during her term, so I’m surprised that this position has become so controversial,” Taiwan Law Association chairman and long-time human rights advocate Wellington Koo (顧立雄) told a separate press conference yesterday.
“Therefore, she should not step down for suspending executions. Instead, she should resign if she signs execution orders because she would have broken the pledge she made when she took the job,” he said.
A telephone poll released yesterday by the Chinese-language United Daily News showed that 74 percent of respondents were against abolishing the death penalty, while 12 percent supported Wang. In response to calls from some lawmakers and activists demanding Wang’s resignation, 42 percent of respondents said the announcement rendered the justice minister unfit for duty.
“Whether one should be stripped of his or her right to life cannot be decided by poll,” Koo said when asked to comment on the poll. “Would you allow the life of someone in your family to be taken if a poll showed most people supported that?”
Wen Chin-ko (溫金柯), chairman of Buddhist organization the Modern Pure Land Society, and Catholic priest Willie Ollevier both supported abolishing the death penalty on religious grounds.
Wen said Buddhist texts have mentioned that bodhisattva Avalokitesvara would save those on death row from execution if they truly regretted the crime they committed, while Ollevier said that no one should take any human life that is created by God.
Attorney Lee Sheng-hsiung (李勝雄), on the other hand, said the death penalty left the criminal with no chance to reflect on the crime he or she has committed, “but if we put a criminal in prison for life, he or she has plenty of time to do so, and I think that’s more of a penalty than just taking his or her life.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY VINCENT Y. CHAO
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
RSS