wfn.org | Former premier reaches out to death-row inmates, shares gospel

["Taiwan Church News" <enews@pctpress.org>]

>      Taiwan Church News

>3036 Edition

>May 3~9, 2010

Former premier reaches out to death-row inmates, shares gospel

>Reported by Sam Lee

>Written by Lydia Ma

Taiwan’s Ministry of Justice executed 4 inmates on death row  on April 30, 
citing it was

administering existing laws. These executions drew sharp criticism  from both 
European Union

and Amnesty International for the Ma administration.

According to reports, former Premier Chang Chun-hsiung visited  these inmates 
in April and

also requested to visit all inmates on death row as soon as  possible so that 
he could share the

>gospel with them

Chang encouraged all death-row inmates to apologize to their  victims because 
the death

penalty could not restore relationships or undo damages. Instead,  only sincere 
apologies

could heal the hearts of victims and their families.

At the beginning of April, Chang visited a death row inmate  surnamed Wang. Ten 
years ago,

Wang fell in love with a girl and murdered her when she turned him  down. His 
death sentence

>was finalized last year.

Chang appeared very upset upon learning that such a young man  could’ve 
committed such a

heinous crime. He urged Wang to repent and led him in a prayer for  
forgiveness. He met with

Wang’s father as well and encouraged him to help his son  start anew.

According to reports, Wang wrote to Chang recently, expressing his  regret and 
repentance for

the crimes he’d committed. He also wrote that he hoped to  apologize to his 
victim’s family with

the help of Prison Fellowship Taiwan Director Rev. Huang  Ming-chen.

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