Addendum to Killings in Taiwan

Since above Review Meeting there have been two unacceptable developments. The first is a resumption of executions. On 19^th April 2013 six condemned men were executed, with the same unjust procedures so strongly condemned in the Review exercise. What was the point of the Review exercise, if its strongest recommendations are ignored? Not only were the executions carried out, but reasoning to justify the executions to which the experts strongly protested, was brashly repeated. Nor does it appear that any account was taken of suggestions by the experts to allow legal and humane procedures to modify the undue haste and secretiveness of the executions.

A second act of provocative disdain for the Review, is a continuation of the eviction and displacement of unfortunate families, especially in the Huagang community, without the provision of alternative housing. It was already of grave concern that the land involved was the property of the Ministry of Justice, which hosted the Review process. The continuation of the expulsions against the explicit recommendations of the Experts renders null the whole Review exercise.

In the face of such provocative disdain for the review exercise it is pointless to continue any prolongation or follow-up of the review process.   

Killings in Taiwan

The move to execute six death row inmates, Friday 19th April 2013,

was necessary and taken based on the law, says Taiwan's vice justice minister, Chen Shou-huan.
The six convicts were given the death sentence because they "tortured and killed women and children," Chen said at a press conference following the executions that were carried out in four cities — Taipei, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung. "The ways they committed crimes were too brutal to show any sign of humanity and mercy," he said.
Chen noted that the six convicted murderers had all been sentenced to death in trials at a district court, the high court and the Supreme Court. Moreover, before deciding to carry out the sentences, his ministry had confirmed that there was nothing that would suggest the sentence should not be carried out on the individuals, he said.

"There was nothing that would suggest the sentence should not be carried out". The Minister has a short memory. The Government of Taiwan invited a team of 10 independent experts from 10 different countries to review Taiwan's compliance with the International Bill of Human Rights which was solemnly ratified by Taiwan in 2009. The experts met in Taipei, welcomed in person by the President of Taiwan. Over three days (25 - 27 February 2013) they heard the reports of government and closely questioned its representatives. On 1st March 2013 they issued concluding observations and recommendations. In the issues they raised, the strongest recommendation was that the Government of Taiwan intensify its efforts towards abolition of capital punishment and. as a first and decisive step, immediately introduce a moratorium on executions in accordance with resolutions of the UN General Assembly.
But regardless of his memory, the Minister also displayed his total absence of understanding of the right to life, the most basic of all human rights. In conversation with representatives of the International Federation of Human Rights in Novermber of 2012, the same minister asserted the right of Taiwan to carry out the death penalty. Oblivious of the inapplicability of the ancient tribal origin of its source, the Minister quoted "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' to justify Taiwan's death penalty policy. He was then, and is today, completely unaware that this principle is in total contradiction to an understanding of justice in a modern democratic state, and of the priority of human rights among the family of nations.
"No man is an island ..... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind"
John Donne 1572 - 1631
Is Taiwan serious in its wish to participate in the worldwide advance of human rights, or was the exercise of February 25 -27, a meaningless showpiece?

Rehabilitation for Prisoners under Sentence of Death

On Tuesday last, 2nd April, Sutawan Chanprasert, a Thai student in the Master of Arts Program in International Development Studies (MAIDS), Faculty of Political Studies, Chulalongkorn University, successfully defended a thesis on Rehabilitation for Prisoners under Sentence of Death in a Human Rights Perspective: A Case Study of Bang Kwang Central Prison.
The title of her thesis is an oxymoron, surely rehabilitation and sentence of death are incompatible! Nevertheless, there is a unique conjunction of a Thai condition and a window of opportunity which made her research possible. Thailand persists in handing down the death penalty; there are currently 687 prisoners condemned to death, 618 men, mostly detained in Bang Kwang prison, and 69 women. The research of Sutawan relates to the male prisoners held in Bang Kwang. The window of opportunity, of which she ingeniously availed, was the possibility of interviewing 10 of these prisoners, 5 prison authorities, 3 former prisoners, and one informed external person. The recently imposed "White Prison" policy which consists of a strict isolation of prisoners would surely hinder such interviews. The resolution of the apparent anomaly whereby rehabilitation could, and should, coexist with a death sentence lies in the fact that while prisoners are sentenced to death at a rate higher than one per week, very few are actually executed. Six have been executed in the last ten years. Eventually the large majority of prisoners benefit from a royal commutation of sentence to life imprisonment, and subsequent reductions in sentence which result in eventual release.
Prisoners remain under sentence of death for up to ten years until all legal procedures are completed. Such prisoners have been excluded from rehabilitation programmes. They live their lives in a no man's land of inactivity and are the subject of the thesis.
It is a innovative and unique investigation, with immense implications for the human rights of prisoners, and the very persistence of capital punishment. This website will report details of the thesis when the final formalities of thesis revision are completed and the 24 year old Sutawan graduates. Meanwhile, deathpenaltythailand hails her achievement.  

Death penalty and abortion, an unfortunate conjunction

While the election of an Argentinian, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, to the Papacy is a favourable development in the Catholic Church, there are worrying implications relating to the death penalty. In recent years the Catholic Church has taken a strong, if not total stand, in opposition to the death penalty. However the new Prelate, has insisted on linking the opposition to the death penalty with abortion:

He once called abortion a “death sentence” for unborn children, during a 2007 speech and likening opposition to abortion to opposition to the death penalty.

In an October 2, 2007 speech Bergoglio said that “we aren’t in agreement with the death penalty,” but “in Argentina we have the death penalty. A child conceived by the rape of a mentally ill or retarded woman can be condemned to death.”

The death penalty is not comparable with abortion. The death penalty is the judicial killing by the state of a person condemned to death for a variety of charges, including those relating to narcotics, deemed by international law to be unjustifiable. Abortion is an interruption of pregnancy, at the request of a woman, who, for significant reason, claims propriety over her own body. Who can deny her, least of all a celibate clergy, who quote divine injunction not accessible to ordinary human beings, and who have had significant failure in moderating their own sexual urges.

Those who are active in working for abolition of the death penalty appear to have lost an ally.  

Death Penalty Thailand Statistics

Statistics of persons condemned to death in Thailand: 21^st March 2013

1. All cases

Gender	Appeal court	Supreme court	Legal Process Complete	Total
Male	383	191	44	618
Female	56	9	4	69
Total	439	200	48	687

 

 2. Drug related cases

Gender	Appeal court	Supreme court	Legal Process Complete	Total
Male	177	69	12	258
Female	44	7	4	55
Total	221	76	16	313

3. Homicide related cases

Gender	Appeal court	Supreme court	Legal Process Complete	Total
Male	206	122	32	360
Female	12	2	0	14
Total	218	124	32	374

 

 

End of Shackling for Prisoners Condemned to Death

 On Wednesday last, news began to trickle from Bang Kwang prison of the momentous end to the practice of permanently shackling all the approximately 590 male prisoners condemned to death. The first to convey the news were two Bang Kwang prisoners not in communication with each other. Later the news was confirmed by officials in the Department of Corrections, and in the Ministry of Justice. It is reported that the order to remove the shackles was given by the Director General of the Department, Pol. Col. Suchart Wongananchai.
Shackles were welded on the ankles of prisoners on the day they were first sentenced by the court of first instance, despite the fact that they must still be considered innocent until Appeal and Supreme Courts confirmed their sentence. The shackles were removed after their execution, or on commutation of their sentences, passing of a lesser sentence by the higher courts, or annulment of the original sentence.
The use of such shackles was cruel and inhumane, preventing prisoners from exercising and being an obstacle to personal hygiene. Abrasions caused by the shackles became easily infected and were a serious threat to health.
In 2005 the UN Human Rights Commission had strongly protested the use of such shackles, but no action was taken to stop the practice. Although Bang Kwang prison is a high security detention centre, it was claimed that shackles were necessary to prevent escape and restrain dangerous criminals.
Death Penalty Thailand welcomes this belated humane act. We hope that the death penalty itself will soon be abolished in affirmation of the right to life, the basis of all other human rights

Death Penalty - Facts from Figures

Prisoners Sentenced to Death in Thailand: December 2012

   (Figures for June 2012 shown in brackets)

All Cases

Gender	Appeal Court	Supreme Court	Convicted	Total
Male	350 (328)	214 (274)	27 (52)	591 (634)
Female	58 (55)	9 (11)	0 (6)	67 (72)
Total	408 (383)	223 (285)	27 (58)	658 (726)

Narcotics

Gender	Appeal Court	Supreme Court	Convicted	Total
Male	183 (156)	78 (89)	8 (31)	269 (276)
Female	48 (45)	8 (10)	0 (6)	56 (61)
Total	231 (201)	86 (99)	8 (37)	325 (337)

Homicide

Gender	Appeal Court	Supreme Court	Convicted	Total
Male	167 (172)	136 (185)	19 (21)	322 (378)
Female	10 (10)	1 (1)	0 (0)	11 (11)
Total	177 (182)	137 (186)	19 (21)	333 (389)

Comments: The differences for the statistics for June and December reveal the important impact of the Royal Pardon granted on 11^th August, on occasion of the birthdays of Her Majesty the Queen, and the Crown Prince. As shown in the top “All Cases” category, in June, there were 58 prisoners for whom all legal process was completed. Following the pardon this number was reduced to zero. I confirmed this with a prison warder who assured me, referring to the number of prisoners facing possible execution, that there were no prisoners on death row, although it took almost three months to complete the formality of moving them to non-death penalty quarters, and removing the shackles, compulsory for death row prisoners. The number of female prisoners changed from 6 to 0 in August. There are no further completed convictions of women so that the figure remains 0 in December.

However, the number of convicted prisoners is now 27; these are cases where the death penalty has been confirmed by the Supreme Court, the only avenue by which these cases could have reached completion. At least some of these cases are due to convictions in the Southern Border Provinces, the source of most death sentences at present. The validity of death sentences coming from areas under martial law deserve investigation.

A further interesting observation may be made on the number of cases reaching the Appeal Court. These are cases which result from death sentences in the Courts of First Instance. Here we notice an increase of  408 – 383 = 25 over the June figure, which indicates a minimum number of new death sentences. It is a minimum because an unknown number of the cases before the Appeal Court may already have been removed due to dismissal or confirmation by that Court, removing them from the category of cases before the Appeal Court. Thus we know of at least 25 new death sentences over a six month period, which indicates an annual rate of death sentences of 50. UCL and other Thai human rights organizations have been reporting figures in this range over recent years. We obtained the data from the Department of Corrections, which does not itself publish this statistic. However, major databases of worldwide death penalty figures based in the UK and US have been quoting single digit figures for the annual rate of death sentences in Thailand, probably basing their data on sentences reported only in the English language press. Commentators have used the single digit figures to comment favourably on the decline in use of the death penalty in Thai justice. Sad to say, the death penalty is still being applied at an average rate of one per week. Pressure on prison accommodation is probably a factor in the attempts of some politicians and government officials to accelerate executions. For the moment they may be restrained by appearing to counter the Royal intention shown in the recent pardon. But for how long? It is encouraging that despite the statements of the promoters of the death penalty that those convicted on drug charges would not be pardoned, they have indeed been pardoned.

Restorative Justice: Theory and a Practice

The Theory:

Most modern justice systems focus on a crime, a lawbreaker and a punishment. But a concept called “restorative justice” considers harm done and strives for agreement from all concerned — the victims, the offender and the community — on making amends. And it allows victims, who often feel shut out of the prosecutorial process, a way to be heard and participate. In this country, restorative justice takes a number of forms, but perhaps the most prominent is restorative-justice diversion. There are not many of these programs — a few exist on the margins of the justice system in communities like Baltimore, Minneapolis and Oakland, Calif. — but, according to a University of Pennsylvania study in 2007, they have been effective at reducing recidivism. Typically, a facilitator meets separately with the accused and the victim, and if both are willing to meet face to face without animosity and the offender is deemed willing and able to complete restitution, then the case shifts out of the adversarial legal system and into a parallel restorative-justice process. All parties — the offender, victim, facilitator and law enforcement — come together in a forum sometimes called a restorative-community conference. Each person speaks, one at a time and without interruption, about the crime and its effects, and the participants come to a consensus about how to repair the harm done.

The methods are mostly applied in less serious crimes, like property offenses in which the wrong can be clearly righted — stolen property returned, vandalized material replaced. The processes are designed to be flexible enough to handle violent crime like assault, but they are rarely used in those situations. And no one I spoke to had ever heard of restorative justice applied for anything as serious as murder. 

The Practice:

www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/magazine/can-forgiveness-play-a-role-in-criminal-justice.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130106

A detailed account of Restorative Justice applied in an unusual case. A man shoots dead his girl friend after days of argument. Parents of the girl friend take the complex path of restorative justice.

Taiwan continues to harvest the organs of executed prisoners

Taiwan has claimed to no longer harvest body parts of executed prisoners. However*:

Flesh-cooking convict's organs transplanted

• Published: 23/12/2012 at 06:46 PM
• Online news: Asia

A hospital in Taiwan harvested organs and other body parts from one of six executed death row inmates, in a controversial procedure that could help five patients, local media reported Sunday.

Inmates at Changhua jail in Taiwan's central Erlin township. A hospital in Taiwan harvested organs and other body parts from one of six executed death row inmates, in a controversial procedure that could help five patients, local media reported Sunday.

Taiwanese authorities executed six death row prisoners Friday, the largest number to be put to death in one day in recent years, amid an ongoing debate about the maintenance of capital punishment.
Three inmates had agreed to donate their organs but doctors only harvested material from one of them, the United Daily News said.
Chen Chin-huo, convicted of murdering a woman and cooking her flesh, had his liver, two kidneys, corneas and bone removed, the newspaper reported.
"The donation will benefit at least five patients waiting for transplanting of organs," it said, without identifying the hospital where the procedure took place.
The Kaohsiung Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in the south refused to harvest organs from a second inmate.
Lin Hsin-yi, of the Taiwan Alliance to End Death Penalty, told AFP that death row inmates had to give consent for their organs to be removed but that some doctors refused to perform such operations.
"Unlike the people who die of illnesses or killed in accidents, the inmates have their lives taken by force," she said.
"As doctors need to race against time, the inmates are sent to the hospital as soon as possible after execution.
"Against that backdrop, some doctors may feel they are removing organs from people who are still (medically) alive."
The justice ministry did not reveal how the six inmates were executed Friday but usually death row convicts in Taiwan are put to death with a bullet to the head.
Taiwan is one of the few countries where organ harvesting from death row inmates is allowed.
Taiwan executed five prisoners in March 2011 and four in April 2010. The 2010 executions were the first after a hiatus that had lasted since 2005.
The death penalty debate reignited in Taiwan after the playground murder of a 10-year-old boy whose throat was slit.
Following reports suggesting the 29-year-old suspect was allegedly looking forward to free board and lodgings in jail, angry protesters gathered at the justice ministry demanding the island's death row inmates be executed.
The debate has also been fuelled by the 1997 execution of a soldier wrongly convicted in a child murder case.

Prisoners whose organs are harvested in Taiwan are executed as they lie in a plastic bath. Rather than the usual bullet in the heart, the prisoner is executed by a single bullet in the brain stem. The still breathing body is put on life support until doctors remove organs, hence the report that the donor is still medically alive. In previous practice, those condemned could donate organs but under criticism that the donation could not be freely made in the stress of impending execution, the harvesting of prisoner organs was said to be discontinued. Not quite, it seems from this report. The hesitations of "some doctors" are well founded.

Executions in Taiwan

Execution Chamber Taiwan* by Toshi Kazama

Zeng Si-ru, Hung Ming-tsung, Huang Hsien-cheng, Chen Chin-huo, Kuang Te-chiang and Tai Te-ying were executed on Friday 21st December at different locations across Taiwan.

The executions by shooting are the first in the country this year. Five people were executed in 2011 and 55 people are awaiting execution and have exhausted all appeals.

The sentences were carried out late Friday, a day after Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu signed the execution orders, a government statement said.
The six men who were executed had been convicted of "grave offenses" such as fatal kidnappings and multiple murders and were executed because of the brutality of their crimes, the statement said.
Their sentences were confirmed by court authorities at various levels, and the executions were carried out simultaneously in four prisons across the island, officials said.
The last executions in Taiwan were in March 2011, when five men were put to death.

The authorities have repeatedly declared their intention to move away from using the death penalty and lead a public debate on the issue.
Deputy Justice Minister Chen Shou-huang said on 19 December that the authorities would carry out death sentences on its own schedule and will not be influenced by foreign experts. On 20th December 111  countries voted in the United Nations General Assembly in favour of a Moratoriium on the death penalty, the day that the death sentences were signed. While Taiwan is not a member of the UN, it very much courts its approval and has set up its own monitoring functions on human rights to mimic UN procedures. The emptiness of its monitoring functions is displayed by its actions.

On 14th November the author of this blog discussed the death penalty with the Deputy Justice Minister during an interview arranged with an investigative team from the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). The Minister did not accept that Taiwan was bound to refrain from executions by Taiwan's promised adherence to the standards of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, now interpreted by experts in international law to necessarily involve abolition. He affirmed his belief that Capital Punishment is an effective deterrent to crime. Finally, he affirmed adherence to biblical authority for the slogan "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth", unaware, it seems, that the phrase is specifically rejected in the New Testament.We surmise that he is also totally unaware of the vote in the UN General Assembly.

*There are slightly different accounts of the execution procedure. The following is consistent with the image shown; to the right is the last meal provided to the condemned person. The condemned lies face down on a sheet on the floor, which is covered in black sand to reduce the contrast of fresh blood. A medical practitioner marks where his heart is. The prisoner is shot from behind three times at close range.Death at its most clinical and cruel.