Death penalty is danger to all: Meeropol
Children fundation's director talks about personal experience, urges more constructive alternation
By Dennis Engbarth
Taiwan News, Staff Reporter
Page 2, 2010-07-05   

In an exclusive interview, Robert Meeropol, vice-chair of Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights and the founder and executive director of the Rosenberg Foundation for Children, discussed with Taiwan News Chief Editorial Writer Dennis Engbarth how his experience as a child whose parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, were executed by the United States government for "conspiracy to commit espionage" at the height of the "anti-communist" Cold War period known as "McCarthyism" led to opposition to the death penalty.

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Victims rights activists urge Taiwan government to reconsider death penalty

By Dennis Engbarth
Taiwan News, Staff Reporter
2010-07-03 03:38 AM     

A group of murder victims from the United States and Japan are holding a series of lectures in Taipei and other cities this weekend to support calls by local activists for a cessation of capital punishment in Taiwan.

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U.S. group of murder victims' families argues against death penalty

Taipei, July 2 (CNA) State execution of convicted murderers does not guarantee peace of mind for the families of the victims, an international non-governmental organization said in Taipei Friday.

"Executing someone helps no one... Killing another human being does not undo that act of violence," said Robert Meeropol, vice-chair of the board of directors of the Murder Victims' Families For Human Rights (MVFHR).

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Executions, threats, an apology and forgiveness
（原中文文章為：謝謝你的對不起～邁向修復式正義 ）

By Lin Hsin-yi 林欣怡
Taipei Times, Sunday, Jun 20, 2010, Page 8

There are many reasons why the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) has moved its office — not only because of the threats it has received.

The media have produced some misleading reports on this. The vast majority of people are capable of calm discussion, even where opinions differ. Everyone has the right to free speech. When it involves physical threats, however, this is no longer a matter of freedom of speech. A small group of extremists should not deny others their right to public debate.

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TAIWAN
ADPAN Regrets Use of the Death Penalty and Appeals for the Lives of those under Sentence of Death
AI Index:  ASA  38/002/2010 (3 June 2010) (中文請見這裡 )

The Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network (ADPAN) regrets the decision made on 28 May by the Justices of the Taiwan Constitutional Court (of Judicial Yuan) to reject a petition made on behalf of 44 death row inmates. 

This petition filed by the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) to the Constitutional Court aimed to highlight that the use of the death penalty was unconstitutional and there were flaws in the legal procedure regarding these cases. The petition was expected to provide a chance to open retrials for these cases or to save the 44 prisoners from execution.

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TAIWAN NEWS EDITORIAL    
Taiwan grand justices show deadly cowardice
Taiwan News, Page 6, 2010-06-01 12:00 AM    
http://www.etaiwannews.com/etn/news_content.php?id=1273403&lang=eng_news&cate_img=46.jpg&cate_rss=news_Editorial

Taiwan's Council of Grand Justices shirked their duty to uphold the fundamental human rights mandated by our laws by refusing to review the constitutionality of issues related to the death sentence Friday.

In their role as Taiwan's Constitutional Court, the 15 grand judges decided not to accept three petitions filed by lawyers of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty (TAEDP) on behalf of 40 prisoners on death row only weeks after four persons convicted of murder were executed April 30, breaking Taiwan's five-year tacit moratorium on implementation of capital punishment.

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Forty death row inmates might be executed
2010/05/29

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.

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Justice minister meets with anti-death penalty group
2010/05/21

Taipei, May 21 (CNA) Minister of Justice Tseng Yong-fu met with an anti-death penalty group for the first time Friday to discuss capital punishment, which has become a hot-button issue since Taiwan's execution of four death-row prisoners last month.

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EDITORIAL : Few checks, little balance

Monday, May 17, 2010, Page 8, Taipei Times

For decades, Taiwan struggled along without a key lodestone of a true democracy — accountability in the form of checks and balances between the five branches of government, between the various government agencies and between the government or the legislature and the public. Taiwan’s democracy has languished in a kind of never-neverland, where few, if any, politicians and leaders are held accountable for their words and actions, except for the occasional scapegoat.

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International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) / Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR)
Press release (中文版本請按此 )
Taiwan/Death Penalty

Resumption 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 requesting a constitutional review of the cases of 14 death row inmates who did not have legal representatives in their third trials. The other two petitions, submitted respectively on March 29th and April 15th 2010, argued serious flaws in the penalty measurement procedure and violation of the right to life, after Taiwan ratified the ICCPR in March 2009.

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