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A very dangerous import from China
Tuesday, Aug 17, 2010, Page 8
The answer given by a police officer for blocking a protest
could not have been more obscure, if not worrying. Asked on what grounds Tibetan
protesters applying for a permit to demonstrate on Sunday against a
controversial Tibetan Buddhist art exhibition at the National Palace Museum
would have been turned down, the officerˇ¦s response was: ˇ§Based on which law?
Well, maybe I should not answer that question.ˇ¨
Well, maybe he should, because there is no law in this land that can bar a group
from holding a protest at the museum, political or otherwise. Such a law exists
less than 200km across the Taiwan Strait, however, and there are signs that the
laws over there are little by little becoming a rule of thumb here.
While we can hardly blame the police officer for doing his job (and in his
defense, this was a theoretical question, as the Tibetansˇ¦ protest did not
require a permit), clear answers should be asked of the authorities, as obscure
references to some ˇ§lawsˇ¨ and their arbitrary application is exactly what
underpins the reign of terror that keeps Chinese dissidents on their toes ˇX and
in jail.
In recent months, the administration of President Ma Ying-jeou (°¨^¤E) has
provided many oblique references to ˇ§national securityˇ¨ and the ˇ§national
interestˇ¨ to justify barring peaceful individuals from entering the country,
including people closely associated with World Uyghur Congress president Rebiya
Kadeer, who herself has been ˇ§blacklistedˇ¨ for three years. Then, as now, no
clear laws were stated by the authorities and the arguments given would not have
held up in court.
If, when it comes to certain issues, this country is no longer governed by law,
then what are the foundations of the stateˇ¦s policies?
There is reason to believe that on the question of ˇ§splittism,ˇ¨ the laws are now
being written in Beijing, and the first victims of this de facto application of
Chinese law on Taiwanese soil are the very minorities whose voices have been
silenced in China: Tibetans and Uighurs. Under Ma, representatives from those
ethnic groups have increasingly been treated as second-class citizens ˇX denied
entry visas, dumped by police in the mountains of Neihu after participating in a
rally in Taipei, and now barred from bringing a picture of their spiritual
leader to ˇ§completeˇ¨ an exhibition from China at the National Palace Museum.
All of this is ostensibly meant to please Beijing. Although the suppression of
Tibetans and Uighurs already warrants the strongest of condemnation, it also
points to the possibility that this is merely the beginning. Legal arbitrariness
is a slippery slope, one that eventually risks bringing other groups under its
shadow. Next in line, we can imagine, are Falun Gong practitioners, Aborigines
and supporters of Taiwanese independence.
If we are to avoid such a scenario from becoming reality, every instance of
arbitrariness should be opposed at all cost. If no article of law governing this
land justifies those actions, whoever is responsible should face the
consequences.
Ma and others in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) have attempted to blur the
lines between Taiwan, the Republic of China and the Peopleˇ¦s Republic of China,
especially when discussing notions of culture and sovereignty. Irritating though
this may be, the ramifications of those pronouncements usually remained in the
abstract, with no immediate impact on peopleˇ¦s lives. However, should aspects of
Chinaˇ¦s repressive ˇ§legalˇ¨ system be imported and mixed with Taiwanˇ¦s, it wonˇ¦t
be long before certain groups and individuals start feeling the consequences.
The current targets of pseudo-legal arbitrariness are not merely ˇ§othersˇ¨ in the
ethnic sense of the word; that could very well be us in the not too distant
future.
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