Police criticized for not identifying officers
　

EXCESSIVE FORCE: The Taipei Police Department said it would comply with a court order to identify officers who were involved in clashes with demonstrators last year

By Flora Wang
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009, Page 2

The Taipei City Police Department was yesterday accused of being uncooperative in a lawsuit filed against police officers who allegedly used excessive force during a demonstration against a Chinese official’s visit last year.

Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) and Judicial Reform Foundation executive director Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正) made the accusation at a press conference in Taipei.

Huang said the foundation had requested that the department identify the police officers who had been called in as reinforcements during the demonstration so that they could testify in court in a case that alleges the Taipei City police used ­excessive force against demonstrators outside the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei on Nov. 5 last year during the visit of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).

Huang said the foundation provided clear photos of the people involved to the Taipei District Court earlier this year, but the department did not reply to the court until June 5, when the department said it could not identify any of the people in the photos.

Lin said the department was being uncooperative in an attempt to protect the police officers involved.

“We also helped demonstrators file several lawsuits against police officers in central and southern Taiwan. Some of the pictures [in these cases] were more blurred [than the pictures given to the Taipei Police Department], but police departments in central and southern Taiwan managed to identify all the officers in question,” Lin said.

In response, Lin Chin-hsiang (林金祥) of the Taipei Police Department said the department would comply with the court order to identity the police officers.

Chiu Kuan-yu (邱寬愉), deputy director of the Public Order Division of the National Police Agency, declined to comment on the legislator’s accusation.

“We are a democracy. This is an ongoing legal case. It is inappropriate to talk about the case in public,” Chiu said.

Chen silent during trial, angry about family’s case
　

By Shelley Huang
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009, Page 3

Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday maintained his silence during his trial for corruption, but expressed his anger through a spokesperson about his son and daughter being named as defendants in a related perjury case.

Yesterday was the first day of a week of consecutive full-day court appearances for the former president. Hundreds of his supporters again gathered outside the Taipei District Court to show their dissatisfaction with the judicial process.

They were clad in green shirts and carried signs with slogans calling for the release of the former president and protesting the unfair judicial system.

Among them was Chen’s secretary Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘). Asked for comment outside the courthouse, he said that the former president was extremely distressed after events on Monday, when his son Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) and son-in-law Chao Chien-ming (趙建銘) were questioned by prosecutors on perjury charges.

“[The former president] is very angry that the case now involves his whole family, and with no mercy,” Chiang said. “[He] thinks that the cases involving [people in his] generation should not involve the second generation [his children].”

“He thinks it’s a political witch hunt that is directed at his entire family and no one will be left alone,” he said.

The three, along with former chairman of the Taipei Financial Center Co, Diana Chen (陳敏薰), were charged with perjury on June 3. The three on Monday admitted to giving false testimony regarding Chen Shui-bian’s money laundering and embezzlement charges.

Presiding Judge Tsai Shou-hsun (蔡守訓) had scheduled yesterday’s hearing to summon witnesses Hsu Sheng-chang (?? and Liu Chi-ling (劉啟玲), division chief and section chief respectively of the Science Park Administration, a government agency in charge of managing science parks around the country.

Hsu and Liu gave accounts of land deal negotiations between government officials and Quanta Display Inc, the company that planned at the time to use the land to build factories.

Former Hsinchu Science Park chief James Lee (李界木), along with the former president, is charged with taking kickbacks from a government land deal in Longtan (龍潭), Taoyuan County.

Prosecutors allege that in a meeting at the Presidential Office between the former president, Lee and other government officials, Chen Shui-bian proposed that the administration first rent the plot of land, then buy it and eventually include it as part of a science park.

Prosecutors allege the idea was for former first lady Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍) to collect NT$400 million (US$12 million) in bribes as part of a deal between the government-run Hsinchu Science Park and Dayu Development Corp.

In related news, local media ­reported yesterday that the former president would soon face another wave of corruption charges as the Department of Investigation in Taipei City under the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau wraps up its probe into classified diplomatic affairs during Chen Shui-bian’s time in office.

Investigators suspect the former president failed to report remaining balances of between US$20,000 and US$80,000 in his expense account each time he returned from overseas, allegedly embezzling a total of US$300,000 in the eight years he was in office.

The former president has denied the accusations.

Activists in China say police beat rights lawyer

AFP, SHANGHAI
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009, Page 5

A human rights group yesterday condemned Chinese police for allegedly stripping and beating a prominent Shanghai lawyer during a nine-hour detention last week.

Police summoned Zheng Enchong (鄭恩寵), who has advised residents claiming to have been forcibly evicted, on Wednesday as part of an “economic investigation,” the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said.

Calls to the Shanghai police went unanswered and Zheng was not immediately available for comment yesterday.

The group’s executive secretary Patrick Poon (潘嘉偉) said Zheng’s detention appeared to be linked to his work with the League of Chinese Victims, which seeks to draw attention to forced evictions in Shanghai.

“It is definitely a campaign of intimidation,” Poon said. “He has been warned not just once, but several times not to partake in the League of Chinese Victims and not to continue his legal rights work.”

Zheng has been detained 62 times since he was released from prison in June 2006 after serving a two-year sentence, but the latest incident was the most violent, Poon said, after speaking to people close to Zheng.

Police officers slapped Zheng’s face repeatedly, hit the back of his head and tried to burn his lips and eyelids with cigarettes, Poon said.

At one point, the officers pulled him up from his chair, kicked off his shoes and stripped him, leaving him standing in only his briefs, Poon said.

Officers then threw the contents of his pockets onto the floor, including money, keys, a pen and the Bible that Zheng, a devout Christian, was carrying, Poon said.

The right to be a country

On June 4, US President Barack Obama declared in Cairo that “Just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s.”

Does this spirit apply to Taiwan? Do the Taiwanese deserve the same right? Former secretary of state Colin Powell and other US officials said that Taiwanese do not enjoy nationhood. The US has backed the “status quo” for Taiwan, and does not support a referendum on changing the national title, the Constitution or the structure of government.

Taiwanese are not Chinese, nor do they belong to “Chinese Taipei.” The majority of Taiwanese are not residents of Taipei; they belong to Taiwan. Unless the spirit of Obama’s declaration is universal, its validity is in doubt.

CHUNG NAN SHIH
Columbus, Ohio

The Chinese evil twins

“Chinese do not kill Chinese” is the cliche embraced by both the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to instill fear in those who long to go their own way. It isn’t some newfound inspiration for peace that would rehabilitate the two political behemoths, which are viewed by many as the twin evils of modern China.

Even so, many Chinese believe that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), the embodiment of the present-day KMT, will be a hero in Chinese history, eventually to be credited with not only bringing Taiwan into Beijing’s fold but also injecting modernity into China’s antiquated political culture.

This will be the case until the moment that they realize their idol has no steadfast objection to a government that slaughters unarmed civilians. Ma, with his recent comment on the Tiananmen Square Massacre, appears to be at the ready to whitewash acts of “Chinese killing Chinese.”

Equally enlightening for the public should be Ma’s self-appointment — or running unopposed, as dictated by convention — as chairman of the KMT in preparation for a momentous rendezvous with Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

Ma seems to be hoping that the chairmanship will precipitate a reversion of Taiwan’s status to “Nationalist-occupied Taiwan,” the term most often used internationally during the Chiang era.

Taking up the chairmanship would represent an important step in realizing Ma’s dream of unification given that Beijing recognizes neither the Republic of China nor Taiwan’s president. However, Beijing fully acknowledges the KMT as being the CCP’s rival during the civil war as well as the entity that occupied Taiwan.

The cross-strait quarrel could then be reduced to a remnant of the war — nothing that the kowtowing “head of Nationalist-occupied Taiwan” couldn’t help resolve.

To make this possible, Ma has to nullify 20 or so years of Taiwan’s democratization.

The problem is that he derives his legal power from the Taiwanese public through elections. Once democracy has been shelved, the legitimacy of Ma’s power, as well as his mandate to represent Taiwan, would vanish.

So, too, would Ma’s only pillar of strength in dealing with Hu.

HUANG JEI-HSUAN
Los Angeles, California

On our responsibility for refugees
　

By Lee Yung-ran 李永然
Wednesday, Jun 24, 2009, Page 8

‘It is a great shame that people who have been forced to flee their homelands after being abandoned or persecuted by incompetent and repressive regimes should then suffer inhumane treatment from the countries where they seek refuge.’

June 20 was World Refugee Day, as marked by the UN. On this day each year, many activities are held around the world to draw attention to the plight of refugees and call on people and institutions to give displaced people a helping hand.

According to figures compiled by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are 32.9 million refugees — including internally displaced people — in the world today. In other words, more than one in 200 of the world’s people is a refugee. All such displaced people need attention and aid from the international community.

The Taipei Overseas Peace Service (TOPS), in association with the Chinese Association for Human Rights, has for many years stationed volunteers abroad to serve the needs of refugees. Every year, the TOPS organizes Refugee Day activities in Taiwan to raise awareness of refugees and the hardships they face.

The TOPS has also been active in pressing the government to draw up and pass a law dealing specifically with refugees and the granting of asylum.

The tens of millions of refugees in the world today did not flee their homelands by choice. The UN has laid down a number of international humanitarian laws that seek to uphold their rights. Most developed countries also have laws on refugees and granting asylum, giving displaced and stateless people a chance to find a safe haven.

Some countries, however, are not signatories to the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and do not have asylum laws.

When refugees arrive in such countries, they are often unable to acquire refugee status and may be forcibly deported or arrested and detained. It is a great shame that people who have been forced to flee their homelands after being abandoned or persecuted by incompetent and repressive regimes should then suffer inhumane treatment from the countries where they seek refuge.

Article 14 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.”

Although Taiwan is not a member of the UN, it still has a duty as a member of the global village to show concern for refugees and to assist in upholding their rights.

Taiwan still has no law on refugees and asylum. On occasions when human rights activists have applied for asylum in Taiwan, government departments, stymied by the lack of a legal basis for handling such cases, have detained applicants for long periods or deported them back to the countries from which they came.

Such actions fly in the face of international human rights values and make a mockery of Taiwan’s claim to be a “human rights state.”

During the past couple of years humanitarian concepts have taken firmer root in our society.

The Executive Yuan drew up a draft Refugee Law — a clear indication that Taiwan is catching up with international trends in human rights.

As soon as this bill is passed by the legislature, it will provide government departments with a legal basis to offer asylum and other help to people with confirmed refugee status.

When Taiwan starts shouldering its responsibilities in this respect, it will raise the nation’s international profile and make other countries more aware of the role Taiwan can play on the world stage.

Unfortunately, after passing its first reading in the legislature, the draft Refugee Law has apparently become bogged down in the Internal Administration Committee along with a pile of other bills. As a civic group, we are dismayed by the lack of progress on this piece of legislation.

Before and after World Refugee Day, the TOPS is holding a series of talks at colleges and other venues. Last Friday it held a seminar entitled “Speed up legislation of the Refugee Law to protect refugees’ right to life.”

The UNHCR keeps reminding us that all members of the international community share responsibility for protecting and helping refugees, and that all governments must help find an ultimate solution to the refugee problem by enacting asylum laws.

The TOPS has been lobbying for a refugee law in Taiwan for a long time. At Friday’s symposium, officials from a number of government departments, as well as experts, academics and representatives of organizations with experience in helping refugees in various countries, were invited to take part in discussions on a number of themes.

The symposium confirmed the need for a refugee law and assessed the practical obstacles facing the draft law.

The meeting also called on the legislature to make Taiwan’s claim to be a “human rights nation” a reality by speeding up deliberations and passage of the bill.

Taiwan endured decades of war and repression. In the past, Taiwanese dissidents were given assistance and asylum by other democratic countries. Is it not now Taiwan’s turn to show concern and offer a helping hand to hapless refugees from other lands?

We hope that Taiwan will quickly adopt clear procedures for giving asylum to refugees, including the passage of the Refugee Law, so that we can shoulder our responsibility as a member of the international community and protect human rights.

Lee Yung-ran, a lawyer, is president of the Chinese Association for Human Rights and a director of the Taipei Overseas Peace Service.