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DPP urges president
to grant Chen Shui-bian medical parole
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
Chairman Su Tseng-chang, center, and a group of DPP legislators yesterday
prepare for a press conference calling on the government to grant former
president Chen Shui-bian medical.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)
yesterday called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to grant former president Chen
Shui-bian (陳水扁) medical parole after a magazine reported on the deterioration of
Chen’s health.
The DPP Central Standing Committee yesterday reached a resolution to demand that
Ma grant medical parole for Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year sentence
for corruption, but has been hospitalized for treatment of various
complications.
“We urge President Ma to let former president Chen go home for the Lunar New
Year holidays. It’s best for him to be at home with his family during the New
Year holidays,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a press conference.
Support for granting medical parole has become stronger after 17 city and county
councils passed resolutions in support of the move, Su said.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday published an article that cited a
28-second video clip recorded during a visit to see Chen at Taipei Veterans
General Hospital, where the former president is undergoing treatment. The report
said Chen is suffering deteriorating Parkinson’s disease.
Former DPP lawmaker Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) admitted on a TV political talk show
yesterday afternoon that he recorded the video when he visited Chen, but said
that he neither distributed the video clip nor posted it on the Internet.
Led by DPP Legislator Mark Chen (陳唐山), eight DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU)
legislators called a joint press conference yesterday afternoon at the
legislature in Taipei, urging the Ministry of Justice to reconsider Chen’s
application for medical parole.
If former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who has been
bailed after being indicted on corruption charges, has been able to return to
his Kaohsiung home for the Lunar New Year, the former president should receive
the same treatment, Mark Chen said.
In Kaohsiung, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), the former president’s son, said he did not
mind Twu recording his father without prior consultation with the family. He
said he hoped that medical parole could be granted to his father, who is
battling mental illness.
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