wfn.org | Killing to Stop Killing Makes No Sense

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Taiwan Church News 2778 23-29 May 2005

Reported by Chen Yi-shiuan . Written by David Alexander

¡§My impression of persons sentenced to death is that they are like wild
beasts, but hanging before me I see some simple, weak young men, if they
were not on death row, they look like they could be classmates of my own
children.¡¨ Photographer Toshi Kazama, an American of Japanese descent, has
toured prisons and death row confinement centres in America over the last
several photographing young prisoners awaiting death in these facilities. A
show of his black and white images was recently hung in Taipei.¡§Behind
these young convicts, I saw poverty, broken homes and error. Execution will
not end that. Aside from execution the society needs to do something to
reduce this kind of situation.¡¨

Taiwan¡¦s alliance to abolish the death penalty sponsored the show along
with a lecture series on ¡§Youth on Death Row¡¨ and a press conference. At
the event several chairs were intentionally left empty to represent those
pictured who had already been executed. Colorful balloons were hung all
around the venue. Wu Chih-kuang, executive secretary of the alliance, said,
¡§These people should have enjoyed times of colorful celebration,
represented by the balloons. The black and white photos represent the fact
that instead, they were rejected by their societies.¡¨

Kazama is a professional photographer and the father of three. He hopes
that through display of his photographs the problems of armed violence,
drugs and crime in the United States might be exposed as rooted in social
negligence and low values. He is a crime victim himself, having lost the
hearing in his left ear to an attack. But, he points out, he does not
condone a violent response to the one who struck him. He says, ¡§In another
situation or with a different upbringing, who among us wouldn¡¦t be one of
those whom I have photographed?¡¨

Since 1996 Kazama has worked on the theme of young offenders sentenced to
death. In 8 years of visiting American prisons he photographed more than 20
individuals. He also took photos of electric chairs and equipment used for
execution by injection. He wants people to see, and thereby come to reject,
the entire process of legalized killing. He has also visited and
photographed the families of crime victims. From them he has learned much
about the value of life. He believes that when a government uses killing as
a way to counter killing, it only creates more enmity.

Kazama says that these stories are not just about youth sentenced to die,
they also are about societies, which themselves are not without sin. He
calls for mutual care, respect, forgiveness and love.

Taiwan Church News is published weekly in Taiwan's local languages.

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