Breaking News, World News and Taiwan News.

Updated Sunday, March 21, 2010 12:23 am TWN, CNA

Sponsors
▪	Find great real time deals on China Flights. Book flights to China or China domestic flights 24/7.
▪	Buy china wholesale products from reliable chinese wholesalers on DHgate.com!
▪	Save 75% for all hotels in Shanghai, Beijing and whole China. Lowest rates for Flights in China.
▪	Get the best deals for Guangzhou Hotels or choose from more than 10,000 hotels in 499 Chinese cities.

Abolition of death penalty a long and winding road: activist

Although critics accuse Taiwan's Ministry of Justice of doing nothing in the past two years to promote abolition or enhance communication to reach broad public consensus, Lin disagrees, saying the ministry plans to set up a panel that envisions an ultimate goal of abolition through a step-by-step procedure.

The most important task of the panel is to identify an alternative to the death penalty and the most acceptable solution is life imprisonment, she said.

“And we have two options there — a life sentence without parole or life imprisonment with conditional parole, which means a convict can request parole after a certain time in prison, “ she said.

“We can't move forward with the issue until an alternative is decided upon,” Lin said.

In addition, she said, the campaign will not be a success in Taiwan without judicial reform and improvement of criminal investigations because, in some cases, death row inmates were blamed for something they did not do or handed down sentences they did not deserve due to bureaucratic mistakes.

Meanwhile, she admitted TAEDP has also learned a lot during the recent controversy, such as not using the term “educating the public” to suggest those who support the abolition hold higher moral standards.

“We prefer to use the term 'dialogue' now to improve the campaign's communication with the public. And we also understand that this will be a long process,” she said.

Social factors behind the death penalty can not be ignored either, she said. The results of a 1994 report by Taiwan's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission — a study of more than 400 executed convicts — showed a general profile of criminals as “blue-collar workers or jobless people between 18 and 30 years old with junior high school diplomas.”

“Fifteen years after the study, I believe that the profile hasn't much changed. What does the profile suggest? There is a lot left for us to think about,” she said.

1|2

Comments

March 21, 2010 ash1168@

Greens are in favor of the death penalty. Civilized countries are not. Sometimes peasants just can't help 'giving the game away'.

March 23, 2010 the_alliance47@

This article was comforting to read, because it shows that there is still hope the people of Taiwan will see the light. This is still a major issue internationally and it is good that Taiwan is stepping up to the challenge of the international community to move towards abolition.