Ma promises to save baseball league
　

ELEPHANTS ON CHARADE: The government has plans to subsidize the teams in the professional baseball league with NT$10 million each and establish an amateur league
　

By Ko Shu-ling
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 1
　

President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday promised to improve the ­scandal-plagued professional baseball environment and help develop the national sport.

Ma said the government would work toward saving professional baseball by making it free of gambling fraud.

“Professional baseball is not at fault,” he said. “It is those who abuse the sport that are wrong.”

Ma made the remarks in Taichung while attending a sports event held by National Chung Hsing University to mark the 90th anniversary of its founding yesterday.

Ma said because baseball was the national sport, his government would do whatever it could to support the development of professional baseball and protect it from being corrupted by “external forces.”

Ma also urged athletes to be honest, saying that it was a pity if professional baseball players were involved in betting scandals because if they are found guilty, they would likely never play again.

The nation’s first professional league was inaugurated in 1989. The joy was short-lived, however, after a major betting scandal and the creation of another league resulted in fewer fans.

In April this year, the Executive Yuan approved a four-year, NT$1.26 billion (US$38.6 million) proposal to boost the sport. Under the proposal, each of the four teams in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) will be subsidized NT$10 million a year to set up lower league teams that play at least 60 games in a regular season.

The government will gradually establish an amateur baseball league, lifting the number of amateur teams from two to 12, the proposal said. Nine more amateur teams would be formed by local governments and state-owned businesses. The government will also offer colleges and high schools NT$10 million each to hold competitions every year to cultivate athletic skills, the proposal said.

The government plan at the time was made under public pressure following the lackluster performance of Taiwan’s baseball team at the World Baseball Classic.

Taiwan’s baseball team returned home after they were eliminated from the competition following losses to South Korea and China. The team’s loss to China marked the second defeat to the country in a year.

At a separate setting yesterday, Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) said the government would not sit by and watch baseball weaken or disappear because it is the national sport.

Promising to hold those who fix games legally responsible, Wu said the government would work to create a clean environment for baseball development.

“Cronies will not be eliminated without their masterminds ­being hunted down,” Wu said when approached by reporters for comment.

Wu did not propose any concrete measures yesterday, except saying that granting tax breaks to companies to encourage their ­sponsorship of baseball teams could be one measure.

On Tuesday, the Sports Affairs Council will meet with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior, the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Education and the four baseball teams to map out a recovery plan.
　

Executive Yuan to refer US beef trade pact to legislature

STAFF WRITER, WITH CNA
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 3

The Executive Yuan has promised to refer the new Taiwan-US beef trade protocol to the legislature in a month’s time, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) said.

Cabinet Secretary-General Lin Join-sane (林中森) made the promise after reaching a consensus with the KMT legislative caucus, Lu said.

Lu also expected the Department of Health (DOH) to brief the relevant legislative committees on the issue, because “in compliance with a 2006 legislative resolution, the DOH is required to provide detailed reports about the importation of US beef to the legislature.”

The KMT legislative caucus would not rule out sending the document for committee review, Lu said.

The new protocol is an administrative accord that would normally take effect after being approved by the Executive Yuan.

Under the Act Governing Legislators’ Exercise of Power (立法院職權行使法), any administrative order enacted by government agencies is then delivered to the legislature and put up for discussion in a legislative committee meeting.

If more than 15 legislators attending the meeting agree, the administrative order would then be handed to the related legislative committees for review, Lu said.

SCREENING

That is not likely in the KMT-controlled legislature, but Lu would not rule out the possibility. He said that if the protocol were sent to the related committees, its screening should be completed within three months. If the deadline expires, the protocol would be considered approved by default, Lu said.

After the DOH announced on Oct. 23 that import restrictions on US bone-in beef products were being relaxed, effective from as early as tomorrow, the KMT legislative caucus asked the Cabinet to devise measures for quarantine inspections of US beef imports before that date.

Under the announcement, US bone-in beef, ground beef and offal that have not been contaminated with “specific risk materials” would be allowed to enter Taiwan, while other cattle parts, such as brains, skulls, eyes and spinal nerve roots from cattle over 30 months of age would remain on the banned list.

The new market-opening decision has since drawn flak from opposition parties, consumer rights activists, lawmakers and also city and county officials.

Government's tourism policy ineffective, DPP says
　

By Jenny W. hsu
STAFF REPORTER
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 3

The dwindling number of Chinese and other foreign tourists visiting Taiwan since the government opened up to Chinese passport holders last year is evidence that the “three links” policy has been ineffective, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday.

“When Taiwan first opened up to Chinese tourists in July last year, the initial figure was around 300 to 400 a day. At that time, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) promised that the numbers would pick up over the following months and reach 3,000 a day. Except for April and May, however, the average has only been 1,307 Chinese tourists a day,” DPP policy division deputy executive-secretary Liu Chien-hsin (劉建忻) said.

The DPP is expected next week to release an assessment report on the impact on tourism, air and sea routes, and agriculture since the opening of the “three links” — direct air and sea transportation, as well as mail services across the Taiwan Strait — in November last year.

Liu said that, compared with the small number of Chinese tourists that visit Taiwan, China receives on average 11,897 Taiwanese tourists per day.

“It is obvious who is benefiting from the opening of the three links,” he said.

Moreover, while the Ma government boasted that NT$60 billion (US$1.8 billion) would be brought in by Chinese tourists, the actual revenue was only NT$32.8 billion, slightly more than half of the expected amount, he said.

Ma also promised that 40,000 new job opportunities would be created as a result of raising the cap on Chinese tourists, but in reality there were 13,200 less jobs since the deal was signed, Liu said.

In addition to the low numbers of tourists from China, foreign travelers from other major developed countries, such as the US, Japan, South Korea and European nations, had also dropped, Liu said.

DPP figures showed that as at the end of September, the number of Japanese tourists was 8.31 percent fewer than in the same period last year. Tourist numbers from the US and Europe also fell, by 7.65 percent and 2.1 percent respectively.

The largest decline was in the number of tourists from South Korea, 38.56 percent lower, he said.

The over-reliance on Chinese visitors is both dangerous and counterproductive, Liu said, adding that Chinese tourists on average spend US$30 less than other foreign visitors.

Lee says voters may punish Ma in local elections

STAFF WRITER
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 3

Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) on Friday night criticized the government’s relaxation of restrictions on US beef, saying the public may take their frustration out on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in local elections next month.

Describing the year-end elections as a possible turning point where the KMT could go from prosperity into decline, Lee said many people frustrated over the performance of Ma and his administration were likely to use the elections as a tool to teach Ma a lesson.

“Public displeasure with President Ma did not go away following the Cabinet reshuffle,” he said at a fund raising event organized by the Taiwan Solidarity Union in Taipei on Friday night. “The year-end elections present an opportunity for those unhappy with him to voice their anger. The Chinese Nationalist Party might go downhill from that point on.”

Lee said the public gave the Ma administration “a good slap on the face” at the Yunlin by-election and the referendum on opening casinos in Penghu, and that the KMT’s defeats in the two polls showed that people were losing faith in Ma and his party.

“It is a sign that the pendulum of public opinion is swinging,” he said.

Commenting on the controversy caused by the import of US bone-in beef, Lee said he did not dare to eat US beef and that the government’s decision to drop the ban on 30-month bone-in beef was “wrong” and that it amounted to feeding the public contaminated meat.

“Ten years down the line, we don’t know what will happen to our children and grandchildren after they eat beef tainted with mad cow disease,” Lee said. “Health is an important issue, but I don’t see the government taking good care of us.”

As a former president, Lee said he was reluctant to criticize the sitting one, but he felt obliged to speak up when he saw so many Taiwanese suffer.

Apart from the controversy caused by US beef, Lee said he felt regret when he saw the government’s incompetence in dealing with the flooding caused by Typhoon Morakot in August.

While many lives could have been saved, Lee said fatalities reached several hundred, adding that it was insufficient for high-ranking officials just to cry over the loss of life.

Lee also denounced Ma’s China-friendly policies, saying Ma did not dare to meet with the Dalai Lama during his visit to Taiwan in September and had rejected exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer’s application for a visa to visit Taiwan.

Lee said Ma also firmly believed that it was “not a bad thing” to rely on China economically and that he had promised to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with Beijing as soon as possible.

“It seems he is determined to interlock Taiwan’s economy with China’s and lay the groundwork for the so-called ‘ultimate unification’ scheme,” Lee said.

On the diplomatic front, Lee said the Ma administration had not only offered up Taiwan’s sovereignty to China’s “evil clutches,” but it had also reinstated the fabricated “1992 consensus.”

Under such a framework, the administration continues to denigrate itself in exchange for China’s sugar-coated poison, he said.

Dalai Lama puts democracy above economy

Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 3

After the disaster that followed Typhoon Morakot, Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama traveled from Dharamsala, India, to Taiwan to pray for the victims after accepting an invitation from seven mayors and county commissioners in southern Taiwan. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government set the tone for the visit by announcing that no top government officials would meet with the Dalai Lama. Staff reporter Hsieh Wen-hua met the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala on Oct. 18, where the spiritual leader said that democracy and freedom are more important than economic interests

“I’ve said all along that Taiwan’s future should be decided by the Taiwanese people.”— Dalai Lama
　

Liberty Times: If you compare your first two visits to Taiwan [in 1999 and 2001] with this visit, do you feel that Taiwan has changed? Was there anything that left a particularly deep impression?

Dalai Lama: The main difference between this and the previous two visits was that this visit was the result of an invitation from the typhoon-disaster areas. I came to pray for the disaster areas, so this was a different experience. Personally, I felt sadness after arriving in the disaster area. On the other hand, I was able to travel to Taiwan and to pray with fellow believers and [Buddhist] masters. From this perspective, I also felt quite happy.

In the beginning, when I had just arrived in Taiwan, some media outlets were a bit hesitant and there were also some negative reports and some protests [laughs]. On one hand, I felt that these protesters were a bit silly, but on the other hand, they made me happy because they were able to take advantage of Taiwan’s freedoms. Afterwards, I told them it would be even better if they could bring that freedom to China [laughs].

A few days after I arrived in Taiwan, media coverage became more and more positive, maybe because they understood better why I was there. After I returned to India, [a representative of] Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council said in a public talk that “the Dalai Lama’s visit had no impact on cross-strait relations.” I felt comforted and happy to hear that.

LT: In the past, politicians rushed to meet you, but this time they all avoided you. What do think about that? Do you feel the atmosphere in Taiwanese society has changed?

DL: I didn’t feel there was anything strange about it and I didn’t think there were any surprises. Cross-strait relations have been strengthened lately and because of this, Taiwan has also received some concrete benefits. In addition to economic benefits, the public’s fear of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has also been somewhat alleviated. For example, China’s firing missiles at Taiwan, that used to be one fear, but that is also disappearing gradually.

Politicians, of course, we all know that politicians have their concerns because they want to protect their own interests and to strengthen cross-strait ties, and I can understand that.

LT: Some people in Taiwan have grown even more fearful of the current situation and they feel China wants to speed up the annexation of Taiwan and that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration keeps talking up China. Do you have any advice on the Taiwan government’s cooperation with the CCP and their exchanges?

DL: I’ve said all along that Taiwan’s future should be decided by the Taiwanese people, so those Taiwanese that you just mentioned, those who are more concerned because of these exchanges, they should make themselves heard in public. They should also mention this in public debates. The public must discuss these things, this is very important.

Often when I meet with foreign friends, whether they are in government or non-governmental organizations, whether in the US or in Europe, I repeatedly tell them that it is very important to build a special relationship between Taiwan and China, but when building this special relationship, they must protect Taiwan’s democracy. This is a necessity. I also tell these people from free countries that protecting Taiwan’s democracy and freedom is the duty of their countries. I say this repeatedly.

LT: Because countries place economic concerns and national interests first, they tend to use “selective democracy.” For example, at any given moment, they keep their distance from the Dalai Lama. Simply put, every country around the world has to take note of what China does when they decide whether or not to meet with you, or with exiled Uighur leader Rebiya Kadeer. Do you feel this is a matter of democratic regression amid civilizational progress?

DL: Many things that occur in the world are good, and many of these things are interconnected and interrelated. There is a Buddhist principle of cause and effect, which says that one event or one thing is connected to many other things and events. These are complicated, very complicated matters [laughs]. I believe this should be discussed in public by experts and academics from different fields, and they should publish articles and engage in dialogue and multifaceted debate. This is very important.

Economic issues are in fact a practical issue, but if we look at it from the perspective of fundamental interests, I feel that a comparison between economic and democratic interests shows that democratic interests are more important. Without democracy, the economy is useless. With democracy, there will be more important developments. Without democracy, there might not be any room for innovation. Without this room for innovation and creativity, economic and cultural development may be faced with even more bottlenecks because in non-democratic states and regions, power is concentrated in the hands of the central government.

LT: When you came to Taiwan, you talked about your hopes that Taiwan will have an impact on Chinese democracy, but even the US is forced to bow its head when dealing with China. Despite your insistence on a peaceful and non-violent approach and the fact that you have held talks with China on 17 occasions, China’s armed police last year suppressed the Tibetan people in a tragic and bloody event. Do you still trust the CCP? On what reasoning do you base the view that the CCP’s totalitarianism may be relaxed and that China one day may move toward liberal democracy?

DL: It is not an impossibility that the CCP dictatorship will be able to resolve the Tibet issue. It is possible to find things that are in the interests of both parties. We are working hard, but if China were to democratize, maybe the Tibet issue could be quickly and easily resolved. We have met recently with Chinese intellectuals, academics and experts. They all have an enlightened outlook and take a rational view of the Tibet issue. There is currently quite a lot of leeway and that would have been impossible 30 or 40 years ago. At that time, no one dared meet with me and if someone did come, they may well have ended up in a labor camp after they returned [laughs]. That means [the situation] is constantly changing.

In the year since the incident in Tibet, I have met with more than 300 Chinese academics, authors and intellectuals in China and overseas, in Europe, the US and Dharamsala. They all support my advocacy of Tibetan autonomy as the just and middle way. In more than a year since March last year, there have been more than 700 Chinese articles supporting Tibet, some even supporting Tibetan independence.

LT: Is that more than you ask for?

DL: Yes, that falls outside the scope of what I am asking for.

LT: Since the day you were born, you have never had the opportunity to choose your own life. Have you ever thought about what you would have been if you had not been born the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama?

DL: Since I am the Dalai Lama, I am the Dalai Lama. I never thought of anything else. I have three tasks in this life. One is to increase human benevolence, one is to promote harmony between religions. I will do all I can as long as I am alive in regard to these two tasks. The third task is that because I am Tibetan, and because I am the Dalai Lama, I therefore have the duty and the responsibility to speak for the Tibetan people, but because beginning in 2001, the premier of the government in exile has been elected in direct elections, I can now say that in this respect, I am in semi-retirement.

The interview was conducted for the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) in English and back-translated from Chinese.

Dalai Lama defends visit to disputed Indian state
　

‘TROUBLEMAKER’: The Tibetan leader said China was overpoliticizing his travels, adding that his decisions where to go were spiritual in nature — not political

AFP AND AP, TOKYO
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 5

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said yesterday he was surprised at China’s protest against his planned visit to an area of India claimed by Beijing, hinting he backed India on the border issue.

The Dalai Lama also criticized China’s one-party rule and its state-controlled media, while praising India’s “successful” democracy.

The Buddhist monk, who arrived in Tokyo on Friday for a week-long stay in Japan ahead of a Nov. 8 visit to Arunachal Pradesh state in the northeast of India where China and India fought a border war in 1962.

“I was surprised” at China’s criticism of the planned visit, the Dalai Lama told reporters when asked about the motive behind his trip.

“Because in [19]62, the People’s Liberation Army already reached that area, already occupied ... then India sort of pushed them back. The Chinese government unilaterally [made] ceasefire, withdrawal,” he said. “So what’s the problem?”

The Dalai Lama added that Beijing was overpoliticizing his travels, saying his decisions on where to go were spiritual in nature, not political.

He said the Chinese government saw him as a “troublemaker” and had read too much political meaning into his frequent travels abroad.

“The Chinese government considers me a troublemaker, so it is my duty to create more trouble,” he quipped. “The Chinese government politicizes too much wherever I go. Where I go is not political.”

The Dalai Lama, who fled to India in 1959 after China crushed an anti-Chinese uprising in Tibet, is viewed as a “splittist” by Beijing, although he says he wants autonomy rather than full independence for his Himalayan homeland.

China has said it is “firmly opposed” to the Dalai Lama’s trip to Arunachal Pradesh.

“One reason why India is successful in democracy is ... that [for] more than 2000 years India [has had] this strong tradition to respect different views,” the Dalai Lama said, stressing the importance of respecting different religions and the views of non-believers.

In September he visited Taiwan, his third trip there, to bless the survivors of Typhoon Morakot, which left at least 700 people dead after it hit the country on Aug 8. He visited disaster areas in southern Taiwan, comforted survivors and held a prayer meeting for typhoon victims attended by 15,000 people, according to his official Web site.

He also criticized China’s one-party state and lack of media freedom.

“People in China [have] no free information, too much sensation. And their own newspaper, media — all their information is one-sided propaganda,” he said.

The Dalai Lama called on the foreign media to visit China to “find the reality” in the western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, home to the Tibetan and Uighur ethnic minorities respectively.

Deadly unrest broke out in Tibet in March last year and July this year in Xinjiang as part of long-standing friction between China’s majority Han population and ethnic minorities.

Friendship is no bar to espionage
　

By J. Michael Cole 寇謐將
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 8

Following my presentation on Chinese espionage at National Chengchi University’s just-opened MacArthur Center for Security Studies on Oct. 15, a member of the audience asked a question that has stayed with me and probably deserves elaboration on the short answer I provided at the time.

“Once relations between Taiwan and China improve,” asked a young man — an undergraduate exchange student from Dongguan, Guangdong Province — “do you think Beijing might, given the importance of the relationship for the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], decrease espionage activity against Taiwan?”

My answer was that regardless of how important Beijing sees its relationship with other countries, its collecting of intelligence continues unabated. In fact, while there is no arguing that China’s most important bilateral relationship is with the US (and increasingly so), the Chinese intelligence apparatus continues to engage in Cold War-style espionage, targeting the government, the military and the high-tech sector in the US. There is, therefore, no inverse correlation between the quality of the relationship and the breadth of espionage activity.

Capability of the People’s Republic of China to Conduct Cyber Warfare and Computer Network Exploitation, a report released on Oct. 22 by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, said that the Chinese government is ratcheting up its cyberspying operations against the US, using, as the Wall Street Journal wrote the same day, “a carefully orchestrated campaign against one US company that appears to have been sponsored by Beijing.”

In Canada, the then-director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Jim Judd, told a Senate committee meeting in May 2007 that “China accounts for close to 50 percent of our counter-intelligence program.”

A former Public Security Bureau official in Shenyang, Han Guansheng (韓廣生), who defected to Canada in 2001, has stated publicly that Beijing handles informants in Canada’s Chinese community and gathers intelligence on key economic areas.

Chen Yonglin (陳用林), a former Chinese political consul who defected to Australia on June 4, 2005, told the Toronto Star in June 2007 that “China has a huge network of secret agents and it is working hard to influence governments.”

He also told Australian authorities that Beijing had been overseeing a network of more than 1,000 spies and informers in Australia.

Hao Fengjun (郝鳳軍), a second defector in Australia who is believed to have been a low-level intelligence official, has confirmed that China has more spies in Canada than in any other country.

The UK’s Daily Telegraph reported in July 2005 that a Chinese intelligence defector in Belgium, who had worked at European universities and companies for more than a decade, gave the Surete de l’Etat, Belgium’s security service, detailed information on hundreds of Chinese spies working at various levels of European industry.

Oftentimes, even private Chinese firms that engage in what is ostensibly “pure” industrial espionage are found to have links to the Chinese government, as was the case with the Shenzhen-based company Chitron, which violated US defense export regulations and engaged in money laundering. US federal authorities recently established that Chitron’s main customer was the Shanghai Academy of Spaceflight Technology, which conducts research, development and manufacturing of missiles and rockets.

Apart from its reliance on traditional spies such as academics, diplomats and journalists, China appears to be using private or semi-private companies to conduct espionage abroad. Because many Chinese firms have former CCP officials on the company board or are partly financed by state-owned banks, many can serve as conduits for intelligence gathering. Back in August 2003, a report by the Asia-Pacific Post said that some 3,500 Chinese spy companies, or fronts, had been identified operating in Canada and the US alone, a number that can only have grown in the past six years.

The US, Canada, the UK, Europe, Australia — all are key partners in China’s economic rise. And yet the espionage continues. Despite denials by Beijing, dozens of reports by various countries show that China’s spying is not only becoming more common, but also more refined.

Based on these precedents, my answer to the Chinese student — one of about 30 currently studying for one semester at Chengchi — was that warm relations or not, Chinese espionage in Taiwan would likely continue.

What I should have added was that China’s espionage in other countries, aggressive though it may be, is mitigated by considerations of sovereignty. In other words, China is aware that it is operating in countries over which it has no claim of sovereignty, and this acts as a deterrent, forcing it to limit its activity to prevent overreach.

Taiwan, on the other hand, is a different story, because Beijing claims it as its own. As such, any consideration of sovereignty that applies to countries in which China conducts espionage and which acts as a deterrent against overly aggressive intelligence collection would not, in theory, apply to Taiwan.

Put differently, as China sees Taiwan as a domestic problem like Tibet, Xinjiang or rights activists, it would have no compunction in using the full array of espionage capabilities it has at its disposal to steal economic and military secrets or collect information on “dissidents” — that is, the independence movement or those who oppose unification.

Given that Beijing’s No. 1 domestic priority is stability, it has not refrained from using the full weight of its security apparatus to monitor and repress entire groups of people, arresting dissidents, shutting down law firms, banning publications and monitoring Internet communications. All of this has accelerated under Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤).

Once China gets its foot in the door in Taiwan — something that is happening now that President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is opening up various sectors of the economy to Chinese institutional investment and allowing Chinese firms, tourism offices and banks to open branches here — it will be far easier for the Chinese intelligence apparatus to gather intelligence in this country.

The firewall that existed in the Taiwan Strait since 1949, which up until a year ago had made it more difficult, though not impossible, for Chinese spies to gather information in Taiwan, is being dismantled. Similar walls were brought down in the past decade or so in countries like the US, Canada and Australia. As we saw, along with investment and firms came Chinese spies; industrial secrets — worth tens of billions of US dollars — were stolen, as were military secrets. (As early as 1997, CSIS and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police published a report, titled Sidewinder, on the subject, which was watered down for political reasons.)

Since Beijing considers Taiwan a domestic issue, every sector of Taiwanese society will be fair game for Chinese espionage, and whatever off-limit areas may exist in other countries targeted by China will not apply. Furthermore, while Beijing is keen on obtaining economic and military secrets from other countries, those goals pale in comparison with the CCP’s mission of “reuniting” Taiwan. That historical imperative, added to the perception of Taiwan as a “domestic” matter, bodes ill for Taiwan as a target of Chinese espionage.

If nothing is done to bolster Taiwan’s counter-espionage capabilities — and so far the signals given by the Ma administration are not promising — the fears raised in Sidewinder and other reports could read like soap novellas.

J. Michael Cole is a writer based in Taipei.

A bill that may end up burying the aggrieved
　

By Lin Feng-jeng 林峰正
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 8

The Judicial Yuan released a draft bill for “fair and prompt” criminal trials (刑事妥速審判法) on Aug. 5, and has held six public hearings across Taiwan since Aug. 18. Most academics who attended the hearings seemed to believe the draft would not have an immediate and obvious effect on pending cases, and that it might lead to unpredictable risks.

Even so, the Judicial Yuan quickly passed a slightly amended version of the draft on Oct. 15 and immediately submitted it for legislative review. It also sent out press releases to promote the advantages of the draft, as if it were absolutely necessary to pass the draft before the end of the current legislative session.

On May 14, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which had been approved by the legislature. Article 14 of the former states that, “Everyone shall be entitled to be tried without undue delay.”

But the trials of Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順), Su Chien-ho (蘇建和) and Hsu Tzu-chiang (徐自強), which have been delayed now for 22, 19 and 16 years respectively, highlight the fact that the judicial system is incapable of handling such cases. This is a violation of the basic human rights afforded by the international covenants signed by Ma, not to mention that some victims of these miscarriages of justice have yet to receive compensation for wrongful imprisonment after 30 years.

The Judicial Yuan’s intention of treating pending cases according to international human rights standards as laid out by the international covenants is commendable, but the real question is how to do this.

Take Su of the “Hsichih Trio,” for example. If Su is found guilty this time, prosecutors can still appeal based on the draft. If the Taiwan High Court finds him not guilty for the third time in the retrial, then the prosecutors can no longer appeal, and the case will end. But if the court finds him guilty, the draft states that even if there are facts that still haven’t been clarified, an appeal is restricted to dealing with legal issues only, and will not deal with disputes over the facts. The Supreme Court can directly overrule an appeal, Su’s verdict will be final and he will have to face execution.

Is this the “justice” that we want? Since Taiwan’s judges often lack the determination and courage to adhere to the presumption of innocence, how many will find an accused not guilty even if evidence is weak?

The major cause of delays to cases is the inability to establish facts. Blocking a defendant who has been found guilty from filing an appeal based on arguments over facts does not solve the problem.

If the Judicial Yuan disagrees, perhaps it could investigate why cases delayed for more than six years — the cut-off point for special treatment stipulated in the draft — have been delayed so long, then announce the results to the public. It should also state how many cases involve a defendant who has been found not guilty by the Taiwan High Court three times or more.

On the surface, the draft seems fair because prosecutors will be unable to appeal a not-guilty verdict if a case has been delayed for six years or more and a defendant has had his or her verdict changed to not guilty three times.

However, it also deprives defendants of the right to appeal a guilty verdict. Is this an attempt to solve the problem or an attempt to bury unfortunate defendants who have been tortured by the judiciary over a long period of time?

Lin Feng-jeng is executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation.

Ending the silence on ‘honor killing’
　

The number of young women and men being killed or assaulted in Britain after supposedly bringing shame on their families keeps on rising. But more than ever before, those who have escaped violence are speaking out to break the code of silence

By Tracy Mc veigh
THE OBSERVER, LONDON
Sunday, Nov 01, 2009, Page 13

‘This crime genre transcends every nationality, religious faith or group, nor is it unique to the UK, every country in the world has honor-based violence.’— Gerry Campbell, detective chief inspector, Metropolitan Police

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Zena had been following a murder trial in London with an interest verging on obsession. “I really wanted to go to court myself but I can never risk going to the city and being seen by someone,” she said.

“But I feel such a bond with other women who may have been through what I went through, even though you never meet these girls; you just hear about them when these ‘honor killing’ trials come up. I wish I could get involved with the support groups and help but you know, I’m just a coward.”

Having first walked out of an abusive marriage at the age of 17 and then from a hostile family who had had a meeting to discuss whether or not she should die, Zena does not lack courage but she is still very scared.

She has every reason to be. Her Bangladeshi-born mother had suggested that Zena might be allowed to poison herself rather than be murdered for bringing shame on the family. Zena, born in England, is second-generation British Asian and her accent betrays where she was brought up although it is far from where she lives now.

“I’m sorry to be so cloak-and-dagger but you never know what they might be capable of, I know there are plenty of young men who would love to play bounty hunter just for a bit of kudos in the community.”

Another court case six years ago had shocked Zena into climbing out of the window of her locked bedroom and leaving home with £46 (roughly US$76) and a change of clothes, an impulsive act she believes saved her life.

It was the story of Heshu Yones, 16, from Acton, west London, who was stabbed 11 times and then had her throat cut by her father who said he had to kill her because other men in his circle of Kurdish friends thought she had a boyfriend and his honor was shamed. Abdalla Yones was convicted of murder and jailed for life in 2003.

“A family member told me that there had been a meeting about killing me but it was seeing that case in the paper that made it real,” said Zena. The threat to women in the UK from such violence is very real and the list of names of girls and women killed in the name of “honor” is growing.

Police estimate at least 12 are dying each year in the UK but others will be hidden — forced suicides and murders made to look like suicide are widely believed to take place undetected. Women aged 16 to 24 from Pakistani, Indian and Bangladeshi backgrounds are three times more likely to kill themselves than the national average for that age and it is impossible to tell what pressures some must have been under. And for every woman who dies, it seems certain that there are many, many more living with honor-based abuse and hidden away in shuttered communities.

Support groups are springing up. The Henna Foundation is based in Cardiff and Jasvinder Sanghera, who fled a forced marriage and made a new life for herself, set up a charity called Karma Nirvana in Derby, central England, after her sister Robina killed herself to escape the misery of her loveless marriage.

When it opened its help line in April 2008, Karma Nirvana received 4,000 calls in the first year and is now taking 300 calls a month from people under threat of honor-based violence, often linked to forced marriage.

After the UK government’s forced marriage unit was set up in April last year, it received 5,000 calls and rescued 400 victims in the first six months.

Sanghera believes about 3 percent of women manage to escape forced marriage in the UK and when they leave they have to live with fear and rejection of not only their families but also their communities and sometimes their friends.

They also face being hunted down, said Detective Chief Inspector Gerry Campbell of London’s Metropolitan Police. “It’s not uncommon to have bounty hunters out hunting down young people who have left forced marriages or fled from a family where they are at risk. It’s rare for [one person] to take unilateral action, it’s all done in consultation and there is logistical support and collusion in the extended community,” he said.

Campbell, head of the Metropolitan Police’s violent crime directorate, has led a number of investigations into honor-based violence and hate crimes. He believes the Metropolitan Police has learned some tough lessons from tragedies such as that of Banaz Mahmod, who made contact with police five times to say she thought her life was in danger but always drew back from pressing charges. Banaz, 19, a Kurd, was murdered by family members at her home in Mitcham, southeast England, in 2006.

She had been raped and beaten by the older man she had been forced to marry, and had left him. Her elder sister, Bekhal, had also left home to escape their father’s violence and the extended family was beginning to regard Mahmod Mahmod as a man who had lost control of his daughters. The shame became so unbearable that he held a meeting to discuss killing his daughter and her new boyfriend.

“We have had previous investigations where mistakes have been made but we at the Metropolitan Police have improved the frontline training for our officers and been quite clear around the issues with community groups that we’re working with too,” said Campbell. “I’m confident that no victim will ever be turned away in London and that officers know that to do nothing is not an option.

“Honor is about a collection of practices used by the family to control behavior, to prevent perceived shame, but there’s no honor in murder, rape, or kidnapping and with 25 percent of the [cases] we are seeing involving a person under 18: this is a child abuse issue too. The simple message is: if you do this you will be caught and brought to justice.

“Young woman are predominately the victims of honor-based violence but we are seeing an increase in young men and boys — it’s now about 15 percent of the total numbers,” he said.

“Honor-based violence is complicated and a sensitive crime to investigate. It’s fathers, brothers, uncles, mums and cousins and the victim, or potential victim, has a fear of criminalizing or demonizing their family so they can be reluctant to come forward.”

He said that in many cases it was not new immigrants but third or fourth generation families where the worst problems lay. “People who actually are hanging on to traditions that in the country of origin have gone, things have moved on back home but they don’t know that.

“We don’t know how many victims are out there suffering in silence but as an example in the financial year of 2008-9 we had 132 forced marriage and honor-based violence offences reported to us. From April to the end of September this year we have had 129 cases so it’s rising all the time. We’ve been learning about this for 10 years and have been really galvanized over the past four years so while we are not complacent we have come on leaps and bounds.

“This crime genre transcends every nationality, religious faith or group, nor is it unique to the UK, every country in the world has honor-based violence. But we want to make it clear that people can come forward to us; they will be believed.”

Things have undoubtedly improved since the cases that campaigners see as the low points in the fight against honor killings, such as the sentence of six-and-a-half years handed down to Shabir Hussain who in 1995 deliberately drove over and crushed to death his cousin and sister-in-law, Tasleem Begum, 20. The acceptance of a plea of manslaughter through “provocation” by the court was widely attacked by women’s groups. Tasleem was killed because she had fallen in love with a married man she worked with.

Roger Keene, prosecuting barrister, told the court: “The family as a whole, including the defendant, had been distressed for some time about the behavior of the deceased.”

The behavior of women seen to have dishonored their families can be as harmless as wearing makeup or talking to boys. One suspected murder is believed to have been caused by a girl having a love song dedicated to her on a community radio show.

Diana Nammi, who runs the Iranian and Kurdish Women’s Rights Organization in London, has been working to encourage more women to seek help when they are in danger. “The number of women that we know of and hear about and the cases dealt with in court is really just a handful of the full picture,” she said. “But even one case is too many. For someone to be killed for their makeup or clothes or having a boyfriend or for refusing to accept a forced marriage is so brutal and unacceptable.

“A few years ago when Heshu Yones was killed it was silent, but her sister gave evidence against her father and that was a turning point. Those same communities who were silent seven years ago when Banaz was killed, when people were aware she was in danger and did nothing, they are not happy to stay quiet any more, this silence is being broken.

“It is not a problem of culture or religion or education — it is happening in educated families. It’s not one person but several who are dangerous for that woman; so sometimes even the woman might underestimate the danger she is in.

“Here in the UK younger people are at risk because they have grown up in this country and they want to adapt and live in the modern world, they don’t want barriers to who they can be in love with or not be in love with, whether they wear traditional clothes or not, basic freedoms that many traditional families don’t like.

“Honor is a very old tradition but it cannot operate in this country. The children do not even understand it. It’s two lives for these children and the differences put huge emotional pressures and guilt on them and leave them very vulnerable,” she said.

“Before Heshu, honor killing was not a serious crime and perpetrators were treated leniently under the name of cultural sensitivity. Now there are no reductions in sentence. In the case of Banaz, the judge said that if this is the culture then the culture needs to be changed, not the women sacrificed for the culture.” Nammi believes that patriarchal religious leaders are failing women.

“Those who are lagging behind now are the religious leaders. They may pay lip service to change but they have networks and contacts and they are not trying to change anything. Sharia courts are letting Muslim women down and I am sorry to say that the British government is turning a blind eye to these courts. We have civil laws that cover every individual; none of these religious courts provide the same rights and protections for women.”

Irfan Chishti, a leading imam in Manchester, northwest England, said the phenomenon was so secretive that it could be hard to identify who was at risk: “It is not an Islamic issue, it’s more of a tribal tradition that cuts across several faiths, but I can say categorically that it is not acceptable.

“It’s difficult to ascertain the extent of this problem but I like to think that faith leaders are speaking out against it. Honor is a way of measuring dignity and respect and it is a very individualistic thing. Dishonor to one person is not the same as to another but we have to be very clear that there is never any justification for such horrific crimes.”

Honor-based violence can be a socioeconomic issue. Experts say there is a strong correlation between violence against women and issues such as inequality between men. In deprived communities where men are struggling to earn a living they can feel subordinated and lacking in respect, and so try to get their authority back by dominating anyone below them, usually women.

In Pakistan the practice of honor killing — called karo-kari — sees more than 10,000 women die each year. In Syria, men can kill female relatives in a crime of passion as long as it is not premeditated. It is legal for a husband to kill his wife in Jordan if he catches her committing adultery. Crime of passion can be a full or partial defense in a number of countries including Argentina, Iran, Guatemala, Egypt, Israel and Peru.

Confusion in immigrant communities where people feel adrift in a new culture and try to anchor themselves to the past is a key factor, says Haras Rafiq, a former government adviser on faith issues and the co-founder of the Sufi Muslim Council. “Religion becomes infused with cultural practices and honor takes on an over-inflated importance,” he said.

He agreed with anti-forced marriage campaigners that women were being let down by their religious and community leaders.

“The Sharia courts are not doing anything about the forced marriage or honor killing issue as a whole,” he said. “Other countries, the places many immigrants have come from, have moved on, but the immigrant doesn’t know that and he needs to be told.”

For Zena, she has her life but does not have her freedom. “When I first ran away I would go to the library and read loads of spy books to pick up tips. You have to teach yourself how to best keep hidden,” she said. “My life is about keeping a very low profile now and about looking over my shoulder, but at least I know I am alive and I grieve for those poor girls who are not.”