TAIPEI (Reuters) – Taiwan carried out its first execution in five years late on Thursday, upsetting both human rights groups and the European Union, which urged the government to maintain its de facto moratorium on the death penalty.
Despite Taiwan’s reputation as Asia’s most liberal democracy, the death penalty remains widely popular according to opinion polls, although it has rarely been carried out in recent years and violent crime is relatively low.
In September, Taiwan’s Constitutional Court ruled that the death penalty was constitutional, but only for the most serious crimes with the strictest legal oversight, after considering a petition filed by 37 people then awaiting the death penalty.
Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice said in a statement that Huang Lin-kai was executed at a detention center in Taipei after being sentenced to death in 2017 for the 2013 murder of his ex-girlfriend and her mother. He also raped his ex-girlfriend.
The ministry said Huang’s execution was in line with the intent of the constitutional court’s September ruling and that the nature of his crime was “manifestly inhumane and extremely cruel.”
Taiwan last killed someone in April 2020, which also drew condemnation from the EU days after the bloc publicly thanked Taipei for donating face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EU’s diplomatic service said in reaction to Huang’s execution that it “urges Taiwan to implement and maintain a de facto moratorium, and to pursue a consistent policy towards the complete abolition of the death penalty in Taiwan”, underlining its unequivocal opposition to the death penalty.
While Taiwan’s main opposition party, the Kuomintang, has voiced its support for the death penalty, human rights groups have expressed their dismay.
“This execution is a shocking and brutal development,” said E-Ling Chiu, Taiwan director of human rights group Amnesty International.
The Taiwan Alliance for the Abolition of the Death Penalty, in a joint statement with three other human rights groups, said the executions “will only make society more bloodthirsty.”
His Facebook page (NASDAQ: ) was then flooded with comments supporting the death penalty.
