Taiwan: First execution under President Lai condemned

17/01/2025
Statement
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PATRICK LIN / AFP

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and its member organisations Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) and Covenants Watch strongly condemn the latest execution in Taiwan – the first carried out under President Lai Ching-te, who took office on 20 May 2024.

Paris, Taipei, 17 January 2025. The latest execution is inconsistent with the Taiwanese government’s commitment to upholding international human rights standards and casts serious doubts over President Lai’s willingness to make progress towards the abolition of the death penalty, say FIDH, TAHR, and Covenants Watch.

At 10:02 p.m. on 16 January 2025, Huang Lin-kai, 32, was executed by shooting at the Taipei Detention Center, according to the Ministry of Justice. Mr. Huang had been sentenced to death in 2017 for the murder of his ex-girlfriend and her mother in New Taipei’s Sanchong District on 1 October 2013. Mr. Huang was executed despite the filing by his legal team of last-minute requests for a stay of execution to various authorities, including the Ministry of Justice, the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office, the Taiwan High Court, and the Constitutional Court.

Mr. Huang’s execution was the first in nearly five years. The previous execution took place on 1 April 2020, when Weng Jen-hsien, 54, was shot by a single executioner at the Taipei Detention Center. Mr. Weng had been sentenced to death on 13 February 2017 after being found guilty of burning to death five family members and a caregiver on Lunar New Year’s Eve on 7 February 2016 at the family home in Taoyuan City. That was the second and last execution under President Tsai Ing-wen, who was in office from 2016 to 2014. There are still 36 prisoners on death row in Taiwan.

FIDH, TAHR, and Covenants Watch urge the government to intensify its efforts towards the abolition of capital punishment by fully implementing the recommendations made by the International Review Committees in March 2013, January 2017, and May 2022, following their reviews of Taiwan’s implementation of the of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). Such recommendations include the immediate declaration of a moratorium on executions, the commutation of all death sentences, and the incorporation of the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty, in Taiwan’s national legal framework.

FIDH, a member of the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty (WCADP), TAHR, and Covenants Watch reiterate their strong opposition to the death penalty for all crimes and in all circumstances.

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