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DPP seeks public
support for ex-president
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday passed a resolution urging
party representatives and officials to gather public support for the release of
former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for medical treatment.
“The DPP urged its councilors and representatives at various levels nationwide
to solicit support [for Chen’s medical release] and called for more support from
civic groups with the resolution,” DPP spokesperson Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said
after the Central Executive Committee meeting.
The party had passed two similar resolutions on the medical rights of Chen, who
is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, when Kaohsiung Mayor
Chen Chu (陳菊) served as acting chairperson, but there were no substantial
measures stated in the resolutions.
Several civic groups had launched petitions for the same cause, but failed to
draw strong support.
However, the momentum appeared to have changed after the Greater Taichung
Council on Friday passed a motion calling for the release of Chen for medical
treatment as soon as possible and several doctors launched an online petition
recently.
DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) drew criticism for his refusal to sign the
petition despite his verbal support for the medical release.
With the resolution, which represents the DPP’s official position and approach,
Lin said that Su thought it would put the party in a better position in its
effort to seek Chen’s medical release.
Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), director of the National Taiwan University Hospital’s
traumatology department and one of the doctors who launched the petition, was
invited by Su to brief the Central Executive Committee yesterday on Chen’s
health.
Ko, who had visited Chen at the Taipei Prison to examine him, told reporters
after the briefing that Chen’s confinement in a 4.56m2 cell had affected the
former president’s physical as well as mental health.
“As a prisoner — let alone a former president — Chen deserves at least a bed and
a table, but he has been sleeping and writing on the floor,” Ko said.
“I don’t think a former president should be treated this way, and I don’t think
there has been a president treated this way in the world,” he added.
Both Ko and Su called for “closure on Chen’s corruption case, which had caused
serious political division in Taiwan,” with Ko saying that the release of Chen
for medical treatment “may not eliminate the internal fighting, but it could at
least alleviate the division.”
Ko said he had offered his observations as a doctor and did not care about the
political ramifications or whatever the DPP’s decision might be.
Ko’s opinions on Chen’s health echoed the conclusion of three US-based medical
experts who visited Chen on June 11 and said they would make a report to the US
Congress.
Chen’s condition has caught the attention of the US Congress, with US
Representative Dan Lungren calling on the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission to
investigate Chen’s imprisonment.
The call for granting Chen a presidential pardon or a release for medical
treatment surfaced earlier this year. However, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has
made it clear that he would not grant such a pardon.
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