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Taiwan Justice Rescue
Force demands immediate release of Chen Shui-bian
February 8, 2013 By: Michael Richardson
http://www.examiner.com/article/taiwan-justice-rescue-force-demands-immediate-release-of-chen-shui-bian?CID=examiner_alerts_article
Rev. Cheng Kuo-chung calls for
release of Chen Shui-bian
Photo credit: Mary Loan
On the final day of a month-long march
around the island the Taiwan Justice Rescue Force held a news conference at New
Taipei City. The marchers wanted the immediate release of imprisoned Chen
Shui-bian, the resignation of Ministry of Justice officials and prosecutors, and
the enactment of a jury system.
Led by Aquia Tsay of the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan and Rev. Cheng
Kuo-chung of the Taiwan Justice Action Church and Rev. Lyim Hong-tiong of the
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the group took to the streets to get out their
message.
Aquia Tsay missed the news conference as he was in the hospital after being
assaulted by police the night before. Two others who had been with Aquia
displayed their injuries after being violently pulled from their car near the
presidential office building in Taipei.
Rev. Cheng detailed the reasons for the Taiwan Justice Rescue Force march: ¡§The
Abian case is not a judicial case, but a political persecution through malicious
and premeditated acts. Over the last four years, this political persecution went
through stages of custody, sentencing, and imprisonment, marred by many illegal
judicial procedures, including extended custody without charges, illegal judge
replacement with someone willing to be a hitman for the government, and most
absurd of all, the only guilty verdict being based on perjury by a coerced
witness.¡¨
Rev. Cheng continued, ¡§With a close examination of the Abian case, one will find
that is is covered by the fingerprints of ¡§judicial dictatorship¡¨ which aims at
suppressing political dissidents and has caused a serious setback to the
democratic development of Taiwan society.¡¨
The sidewalk news conference, held as the marchers prepared for their final day
of marching, closed with an indictment of Chen Shui-bian¡¦s successor. ¡§Ma Ying-jeou
has ignored all the calls for President Chen¡¦s release and is determined to
imprison President Chen until his death,¡¨ said Rev. Cheng.
The group then marched to Taipei where they encamped four days outside the
presidential office building at Democracy Camp. Although police largely ignored
the march around the island, hundreds of police clad in riot gear greeted the
marchers when they arrived in Taipei. Ultimately three hundred would be taken
into custody in a mass arrest when the Taiwan Justice Rescue Force decided to
break the curfew imposed by authorities on the demonstrators.
Organizers of the march vowed to continue ¡§nonviolent disobedient actions
indefinitely to cultivate people¡¦s will.¡¨
A news release issued by the marchers declared, ¡§We must overturn the judicial
injustices and break the long-standing monopoly of judicial courts by the
Kuomintang elites.¡¨
Taiwan has not yet arrived full-force into the community of nations, trapped in
a ¡§strategic ambiguity¡¨ since the end of World War II. The islanders have been
denied self-determination and are caught between two competing Chinese
governments for control of the island under the so-called ¡§one China¡¨ policy as
a result of the unresolved status.
Under terms of the San Francisco Peace Treaty that ended World War II with
Japan, the United States was made the ¡§principle occupying power¡¨ over Taiwan.
However, Cold War politics prevented a referendum for the Taiwanese to determine
their national destiny and thus democracy has been slow to arrive in Taiwan.
One of the Kuomintang institutions that has been slowest to reform are the
courts of the Republic of China in-exile. If the Taiwan Justice Rescue Force
makes good on its promise to continue nonviolent actions indefinitely the group
can be expected to be heard from again.
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