The murder of a 10-year-old boy whose throat was slit in a games arcade in Greater Tainan over the weekend has reignited a debate over the death penalty after the suspect reportedly said he would get away with a life sentence.
Public anger mounted after 29-year-old suspect Tseng Wen-chin (曾文欽) was quoted in the media as saying he would get a life sentence at most “even if he were to kill two or three people” and that he wanted to go to jail to avoid having to worry about living expenses.
Protesters, who were outraged by reports the suspect said he “targeted kids because they were less likely to fight back,” gathered outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday to demand the execution of the nation’s death-row inmates.
There are currently 61 inmates on death row, caught in limbo partly because of a lengthy legal process and partly by a virtual moratorium on executions. The longest-serving of them has been waiting on death row for 25 years.
“We demand that the government abide by the law and enforce capital punishment to maintain law and order in our society. We oppose abolishing the death penalty,” said Angela Wang (王薇君), head of a child welfare promotion association.
As the government has not carried out any executions in almost two years, some criminals are getting the impression that they can avoid the death sentence even if they commit murder, Wang said.
Taiwan reserves the death penalty for serious crimes, including aggravated murder, kidnapping and robbery, but politicians are divided about whether to maintain it.
A lingering debate on abolishing the death penalty was renewed recently, particularly after judicial and military authorities came under fire over the execution of a soldier wrongly convicted of murdering a child.
Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶), a 21-year-old serviceman executed in 1997, had insisted he was innocent and that he was coerced by a group of officers into confessing.
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
Snow fell in the mountainous areas of northern, central and eastern Taiwan in the early hours of yesterday, as cold air currents moved south. In the northern municipality of Taoyuan, snow started falling at about 6am in Fusing District (復興), district head Su Tso-hsi (蘇佐璽) said. By 10am, Lalashan National Forest Recreation Area, as well as Hualing (華陵), Sanguang (三光) and Gaoyi (高義) boroughs had seen snowfall, Su said. In central Taiwan, Shei-Pa National Park in Miaoli County and Hehuanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Nantou County saw snowfall of 5cm and 6cm respectively, by 10am, staff at the parks said. It began snowing
The 2025 Kaohsiung Wonderland–Winter Amusement Park event has teamed up with the Japanese manga series Chiikawa this year for its opening at Love River Bay yesterday, attracting more than 10,000 visitors, the city government said. Following the success of the “2024 Kaohsiung Wonderland” collaboration with a giant inflatable yellow duck installation designed by Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman, this year the Kaohsiung Tourism Bureau collaborated with Chiikawa by Japanese illustrator Nagano to present two giant inflatable characters. Two inflatable floats — the main character, Chiikwa, a white bear-like creature with round ears, and Hachiware, a white cat with a blue-tipped tail
RSS