The movement toward the abolition of the death penalty...

The movement toward the abolition of the death penalty in Taiwan progressed in 2002, although nine people were executed and 100 convicted prisoners remained on death row, Amnesty International said. "Steps were taken to limit the scope and application of the death penalty, and were widely seen as moves towards its abolition," AI said in its report on 2002. Taiwan's legislature was preparing a draft "Human Rights Basic Law" and the establishment of a "National Human Rights Commission" which were also seen as leading to the abolition of capital punishment, it said. "However, no moves were made towards introducing a death penalty moratorium," Amnesty said. Taiwan's most celebrated death row inmate Hsu Tzu-chiang, "remained in danger of imminent execution," despite his claims of innocence in a 1995 murder and testimony by a key alleged accomplice that Hsu was not involved with the crime, it said. In October 2002, President Chen Shui-bian announced that Taiwan would gradually phse out capital punishment and that Taiwan would issue its first national human rights report in March 2003, Amnesty said.