By Vincent Y. Chao / Staff reporter Sat, Nov 13, 2010 -Taipei Times Page 1 After 19 years, three men accused of brutally murdering a married couple had their names cleared once again yesterday and walked free after a retrial found them not guilty in light of a new forensic report. The latest verdict was reached yesterday morning by the Taiwan High Court and immediately left a family member of the two victims expressing frustration, requesting that prosecutors launch a Supreme Court appeal. Known in English as the “Hsichih Trio,” Su Chien-ho (蘇建和), Liu Bin-lang (劉秉郎) and Chuang Lin-hsun (莊林勳)…

Forty death row inmates might be executed2010/05/29 13:42:59 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. The Judicial Yuan called a press conference later Friday to explain why the petition was not accepted. The following are excerpts from local media coverage of the issue: The Liberty Times:At…

Constitutional Court rejects petition against executions2010/05/28 18:22:32 Taipei, May 28 (CNA) The Justices of Constitutional Court rejected a petition Friday aimed at halting plans to execute the 40 inmates that remain on death row. “Execution of the death row prisoners would not go against the two United Nations covenants that Taiwan has signed, ” the court said, referring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights that passed Taiwan’s legislature on March 31, 2009 and were signed into law by President Ma Ying-jeou the next month. The petition was…

International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR)Press releaseTaiwan/Death PenaltyResumption of Executions a Major Step Back May 4, 2010, Paris-Taipei – The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) strongly condemn the executions carried out by the government on April 30th, 2010 of Chang Chun-Hong, Chang Wen-Wei, Hong Chen Yeow, and Ke Shi-Ming. These executions are the first since 2005 and came before the Grand Justices could review three petitions filed by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP). The first petition dated April 16th 2007 was…

Condemn The Ministry of Justice’s Hasty Executions The Minster of Justice, Tseng Yung-Fu, signed the orders of the executions, killing the four death row inmates, Chang Chun-Hong, Chang,Wen-Wei, Hong Chen Yeow, and Ke Shi-Ming at a heat on April 30th. The families of them weren’t informed and were not able to meet the four people for the last time before they died. Without the confirmation with the Judicial Yuan and other consultations, the Ministry of Justice presumed to take the claims to the constitution interpretation as illegal. More, “administration according to law” doesn’t mean that the government could execute inhumanly…

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL Press Release30 April 2010 Taiwan carries out first executions in five years Amnesty International has condemned the execution of four prisoners by the Taiwanese authorities, the first since December 2005. Chang Chun-hung, Hung Chen-yao, Ko Shih-ming and Chang Wen-wei were executed in prisons in Taipei, Tainan and Taichun on the evening of 30 April. The executions come just two weeks after new Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu was reported as saying that his ultimate goal is the abolition of the death penalty. “These executions cast a dark shadow on the country’s human rights record, and blatantly contradict the…

Open letter to the Minister of Justice of Taiwan Mr. Tseng Yung-fu Paris-Taipei, 26 March 2010 Re: The death penalty in Taiwan Excellency, We are writing to you further to your statement of March 22, quoted in the Central News Agency, regarding the application of the death penalty in Taiwan. We welcome the fact that you ordered a review of the cases of the 44 prisoners on death row in Taiwan, which in practice provides more time for in-depth thinking about further steps. We also appreciate last year’s extremely important measures by the government of Taiwan towards the restriction of…

The original article was publised on Taipei Times March 22nd, 2010 By Liu Ching-yi 劉靜怡 Monday, Mar 22, 2010, Page 8Former minister of justice Wang Ching-feng’s (王清峰) statement that she would never authorize the execution of a prisoner on death row and her subsequent resignation caused quite a controversy. Suddenly, everyone seems to be an expert on capital punishment, while both Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) politicians have showen serious confusion over the issue. This shows that neither the government nor the opposition have been practising what they have been preaching for so many years.…

Taiwan must not go back to death roadTaiwan News, Page 92010-03-12 12:00 AM 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…

It’s a dilemma for the Minister of Justice, and it’s a dilemma for allStatement / Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty / March 12, 2010 ‘I never blamed those who claim their support for the death penalty in public. It’s a moral choice to stand for or against the death penalty and the choice belongs to one’s conscience. What bothers me is that, an intellectual, a self-proclaimed abolitionist is content to retain the death penalty, just because the public poll and opinion are for it.’ ~ A public letter to Minister of Justice of the France, Robert Badinter, 1977…