DPP returns to Taiwan with Keir Starmer QC MP

On 1^st – 4^th October 2018 Saul Lehrfreund (Co-Executive Director) and Sir Keir Starmer QC MP (Shadow Brexit Secretary and a member of DPP’s Board of Directors) visited Taiwan on a delegation to continue engagement on the issue of the death penalty.

Meetings were held with Taiwan’s Vice-President, the Minister of Justice, the Foreign Minister, legislators and senior members of the judiciary, among other individuals. The delegation was particularly timely given that the government has recently broken its moratorium on the use of the death penalty by executing Lee Hung-chi in August 2018.

Discussions focused on Taiwan’s international obligations, the death penalty in the global context, overcoming barriers to abolition and the need to return to a moratorium on executions.

The delegation was coordinated by the British Office in Taipei and continues dialogue begun in previous visits in October 2016 and June 2017.

Please see below a selection of collated media coverage from their visit (in English and Chinese):

• ‘Keir Starmer visits Taiwan to lobby against death penalty’, The Guardian, 29 September 2018
• ‘The execution of the death penalty in Taiwan last month: The Shadow Brexit Secretary is concerned about Taiwan’, Apple Daily, 30 September 2018
• ‘The death penalty execution- Li, Hung-Ji: The Shadow Brexit Secretary visits Taiwan to lobby the abolition of death penalty’, NOW News, 30 September 2018
• ‘British MP in Taiwan to lobby against death penalty’, Taiwan News, 30 September 2018
• ‘The risk to Taiwan from executions’ , Taipei Times, 02 October, 2018
• ‘Media rendering affects jurors. British Commissioner: The judge can rule that “contempt of court’, UDN, 4 October 2018
• ‘Upset by our shooting execution, British MP visits Taiwan to meet with senior judiciary’, Liberty Times Net, 4 October 2018
• Criticized ‘None of your business’ for lobbying against death Penalty, British MP: Human rights are the world’s business, PChome News, 4 October 2018