Little Girl’s Decapitation In Taiwan Ignites Death Penalty Debate
Various sources, including The Inquisitr, have reported extensively on the grisly death of a three-year old little girl that took place in Taiwan’s capital of Taipei City Monday morning.
While the little girl’s death angered citizens throughout the city, the netizens also took to social media to comment on using the death penalty, which has been a highly debated issue for decades.
The Mirror reported that angry crowds tried to attack the man accused of the crime as officers were taking him away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PxncKM8atI
Asia One is reporting that authorities feel the suspect was under the influence of drugs.
The article continues with the death penalty issue where the Former head of the Child Welfare League and Kuomintang (KMT) legislator Wang Yu-min, is requesting that capital punishment be considered. The China Post went even further.
“…Wang Yu-min demanded that the law punish those who murder children twelve years old or younger with either the death penalty or life imprisonment. Her proposal was supported by newly elected KMT Chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu, who said that Monday’s murder “could not be forgiven.”
Of course, the counter argument on the issue also came from another legislator who did not support capital punishment, which Asia One detailed.
New Power Party Legislator Freddy Lim, a vocal advocate for abolishing the death penalty, used more nuanced language in response to Monday’s attack, stating that, “I have always emphasised that the nation’s penal system needs reform, particularly in terms of protection of children and work for victims’ families. Compared with more progressive nations, Taiwan has a long way to go. At the present time, this issue must be faced earnestly.”
Freddy Lim was also chairman with Amnesty International Taiwan from 2010 to 2014, which published a series of reports about abolishing the death penalty, especially one in 2012 about the execution of six people over a similar crime. A little girl was killed, and controversy arose when the government went back on its promise to abolish the death penalty.
The debate over the death penalty has for many years been consistently on the side of abolishing it, especially for Taiwan, where for nearly ten years, various legislators stood their ground and refused to impose mandatory death sentences before the former Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-Fu resumed them when he took the position in 2010.
He was then forced to step down in 2013, replaced by an acting minister before Luo Ying-Shay replaced him, and she too has expressed the need to repeal the sentence, which is noted in The China Post.
“As a government official, one should listen to the public’s opinion instead of acting on one’s own opinions. But as a Buddhist, I hope that ultimately the death penalty will be repealed in Taiwan.”
Aside from the comments being left in online news reports for the death of the little girl, there are also reports of netizens attacking Freddy Lim for wanting to abolish it as one freelance journalist’s twitter account tweeted.
Currently the Justice Minister is in China, but Focus Taiwan reports that a bill to put child killers and mass drug dealers to death is apparently being fast tracked to be discussed on Thursday.
The article also says that apparently 10,000 people are planning to protest the government following the killing of the little girl, calling for the government to hand down a death sentence to anyone who deserves one on the eighth of April.
[Featured image by Eddit Shih | AP Photo]
