TAIPEI — Wang Xin-Fu has spent the past 34 years in prison, where he awaits his execution. When he was arrested, in 1990, some Taiwanese territories were still under martial law — back when Chiang Kai-Shek was in power under the Kuomintang single-party rule.
Wang, now 69, was sentenced to death because he sold a gun to a man who killed a policeman. He has been declaring himself innocent for decades, and yet he is still one of 37 prisoners awaiting execution in Taiwan. On the island, often considered a bulwark of democracy in eastern Asia, the death penalty is still in place.
“Foreigners are very surprised when they find out, and yet no concrete steps have been made to abolish it,” says Lin Hsin-yi, head of the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, an association that has been fighting for decades to abolish capital punishment.
“Every night could be the last one”
The execution methods are brutal. “Executees are shot in the heart,” explains Lin. “Those sentenced are not informed on the date of their execution. Every night could be their last one, everyday could be the one where they knock at your door to kill you. Family members are not informed either, and they usually learn of the execution through the media.”
Prisons are usually in a state of decay.
These dynamics bear a huge impact on the mental health of those convicted. “There have been suicides in the past. Some fight and try to obtain a revision of their sentence, and others even write to the ministry of justice asking to put an end to their suffering,” says Lin.
Moreover, the shooter is a single police officer, who therefore knows to be the executioner, unlike what used to happen in firing squads. They receive no psychological support, but only a “hongbao,” a traditional red bag containing some banknotes, usually handed out by relatives for the Lunar new year.
No hope until today
Prisons are usually in a state of decay. There are two inmates per cell — a bathroom with no door, a small window and no air conditioning. Prisoners are given only 30 minutes of air time per day Monday through Friday, with no possibility of doing any activity outside prison.
There is no hope for them. Yet, everything could have changed on Sept. 20, when the
Constitutional Court expressed its judgment on a case lodged by the 37 inmates currently on death row. The court — called to express itself on the lawfulness of the death penalty — decided to uphold the punishment, but only in “special and exceptional circumstances.”
According to French news agency AFP, there are currently 50 offenses for which capital punishment is applicable in Taiwanese criminal law. Since 2010, 35 people have been executed in the country, with the last execution in 2020.
Data shows that Taiwanese public opinion is all but against capital punishment. According to a poll by Taiwan Public Opinion Foundation, 84% of interviewees were in favor of the death penalty, while more than 45% of respondents stated they would not accept a sentence declaring its unconstitutionality.
The statistics are consistent across different political forces as well: 89% of Kuomintang and 81% of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) supporters are pro-capital punishment, a percentage that increases to more than 91% for supporters of Taiwan People’s Party, very popular among the youth. Earlier this year, presidential elections confirmed the DPP as the main political party in Taiwan, with the Kuomintang trailing behind.
Dealing with the past
Taiwan was under martial law from 1949 to 2000, longer than any regime in history. Over this time, 197 capital crimes have been introduced, including drug trafficking. Yet, since 2003 executions have only been mandated for cases of homicide. Many of the crimes for which the death penalty is still applicable date back to the “white terror” era, when the Kuomintang regime led by Chiang would regularly execute political dissidents. A past that Taiwan has not dealt with so far. “Transitional justice, despite democratization, was never completed,” says Lin.
Sometimes, it is too late when inmates are found to be innocent.
The DPP has opposed capital punishment in the past. The first DPP president, elected in the year 2000, promised its gradual abolition, but this promise never materialized, not even after DPP president Tsai Ing-wen was elected in 2016. During his two terms Taiwan became the first country to legalize same-sex marriage in Asia, but capital punishment remained untouched. Current president Tsai Ing-wen expressed his stance on the topic during his electoral campaign, when he said that it is “a difficult question to face,” which would take “a long process and a long time” to change.
Innocents will be executed
Now that the Constitutional Court has rebated the legitimacy of capital punishment, Lin believes that pressure will mount on the government to restart the executions. “Our fear is that innocents will be executed, as it happened in the past,” she says. The activists point to a case from 2012, when a court revoked the death penalty for three men sentenced to death for the murder of a couple that happened two decades earlier.
But sometimes, it is too late when inmates are found to be innocent. This was the case in 2011, when a military tribunal recognized the innocence of a man executed 14 years earlier for the rape and murder of a 5-year old girl.
Activists are aware that it will take a long time before things will change, but they think that, sooner or later, this will have to happen. To Lin, “capital punishment is not compatible with Taiwan’s image of itself in the world.”
