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Ma insincere on
rights: groups
‘HEAR NO PROTEST’: Critics said freedom of the
press was deteriorating, people’s voices are stifled and there has been little
progress on Aboriginal rights or capital punishment
By Chris Wang and Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporters
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) first human rights report, which he released
yesterday, is full of empty boasts and obfuscations, opposition legislators
said, while local advocacy groups said Ma was not sincere about making human
rights improvement a priority.
Ma yesterday released a human rights report based on the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social
and Cultural Rights, which Taiwan ratified three years ago.
Commenting on the report, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) spokesman Lin Chun-hsien
(林俊憲) said that freedom of the press in Taiwan has been deteriorating during the
Ma administration, with its world ranking falling from 32nd in 2008 to 48th last
year.
It has also been more difficult for people to voice their discontent because the
Ma administration has delineated a much larger restricted zone for Ma’s
second-term inauguration ceremony, slated to be held on May 20, to keep a
planned mass rally against Ma farther away from the Presidential Office, Lin
said.
“Ma has chosen the way of ‘hear no protest, see no protest’ against the people’s
voices,” Lin said.
It is disingenuous for Ma to say that he cares deeply about human rights
conditions in China, he added.
Ma has refused to meet with Chinese dissidents, such as Wang Dan (王丹), since
taking office in 2008, Lin said.
“Ma has not publicly criticized the Tiananmen Square Massacre since he was
elected in 2008. He even praised Beijing for making progress on human rights
issues. It’s simply incredible,” Lin said.
Human Rights Covenants Watch convener Kao Yung-cheng (高湧誠) told a press
conference yesterday that in Ma’s report, “we only see the government dressing
up human rights conditions in the country, instead of trying to touch the core
of issues, and make profound changes.”
“The government is not facing some real human rights violations happening in
this country,” he added.
Taiwan Indigenous Peoples’ Policies Association chairman Oto Micyang, an Amis,
said that despite the mention of indigenous rights in the two international
human rights covenants and Ma’s own promises, “Aborigines in Taiwan are far from
getting autonomy, and I don’t see any concrete actions by the government to work
toward that objective.”
Wellington Koo (顧立雄), an attorney who represented the Judicial Reform Foundation
at the press conference, said that obtaining testimony through “inappropriate
ways,” such as torture or threats, still occurs in Taiwan, and such illegally
obtained testimony is still used in court.
Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty executive director Lin Hsin-yi (林欣怡)
criticized Ma’s “three policy directions” to abolish capital punishment.
“Ma said he would push to revise laws that provide the capital punishment as the
only penalty — well, it’s something that was already done back in 2006,” Lin
said. “Ma also said the Ministry of Justice would work to revise laws on the
death penalty, but the ministry is only preparing to make changes to laws that
are rarely used any more, such as the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法) and the
Criminal Code of the Armed Forces (陸海空軍刑法) — if Ma is really sincere about
taking away the death penalty, he should push for changes to more commonly used
laws.”
As for Ma’s third “policy direction” that the death penalty would only be used
as a last resort, Lin said that on April 30, 2010, a prisoner on death row was
executed while the Council of Grand Justices were still reviewing whether his
sentencing was unconstitutional and that nine other people on death row were
executed in 2010 and last year after they applied for amnesty from the
president, but had not received any response.
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