Taiwan has carried out its first execution of a death row inmate in almost five years. 32-year-old Huang Lin-kai is the first person to be executed during Lai Ching-te's presidency. While the decision is widely supported among politicians in Taiwan, it has drawn heavy criticism from human rights groups internationally.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Late into the night of January 16th, at a detention center in Taipei, a rare execution
00:06by firing squad. The inmates sentenced to die on death row since 2017, for a double
00:13murder and rape committed years earlier. It's the first time Taiwan has carried out an execution
00:19in almost five years, and is a decision that's attracted widespread international condemnation.
00:26In a harshly worded statement, Amnesty International called the execution shocking and cruel, and
00:32a huge setback for human rights in Taiwan, saying it violates the constitution and ignores
00:38an appeal to stop an execution that was still pending. Even the European Union chimed in,
00:45urging Taiwan to immediately apply a de facto moratorium on capital punishment. But lawmakers
00:52from across the political spectrum are defending Taiwan's right to exercise the death penalty,
00:58the justice ministry saying the sentencing followed proper procedure, a claim backed
01:03by President Lai Ching-de himself.
01:23Despite its support among politicians in Taiwan, some opposition lawmakers have taken
01:29the execution as an opportunity to get political, with a KMT legislator accusing the ruling
01:35party of using capital punishment, which enjoys widespread support among the Taiwanese public
01:40too, as a political distraction.
01:53Capital punishment has long been a contentious issue here in Taiwan. It was only last September
02:01that the country's three dozen or so death row inmates brought the subject to the constitutional
02:06court, who ruled it only partially constitutional, saying that it should only be used in the
02:11most serious of cases.
02:14And Taiwan has used the death penalty very sparingly in recent years, with only two executions
02:20during Tsai Ing-wen's eight-year presidency. But with so much public support, and this
02:26most recent execution, all coming just days after another inmate's death sentence was
02:31upheld, it seems capital punishment is still very much an option for Taiwan's justice
02:36ministry, and all despite repeated calls from rights groups to abolish the practice altogether.
02:43Klein Wang, Joseph Wu and Rhys Ayres for Taiwan Plus.