Guilty until proven innocent
You guys on a daily basis keep pushing the “innocent until proven guilty” thing regarding former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). You even have academics reminding your readers that it’s a basic human right. Correct?
Astonishingly, your same paper on a daily basis keeps pushing the “Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) selling out Taiwan’s sovereignty” thing based on your assumptions that closer ties with China lead to unification with China under China’s terms. Now isn’t this branding the KMT “guilty until proven innocent?”
You guys are the biggest joke. You seem to argue that if a person loves Taiwan, then he or she must consider the actions of anyone in the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) as innocent until proven guilty, as this is a human right.
Yet a person must also consider anyone who is in the KMT or supports President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) actions as guilty until proven innocent, amazingly denying them the same human rights enjoyed by DPP supporters.
This attitude is why the DPP is no longer in power.
Trace Gomez
Taipei
An oppressive silence
A few days ago, in the UN General Assembly, France put forward an unprecedented declaration condemning human rights violations based on homophobia, or the hatred of and prejudice against gays and lesbians. This unprecedented French declaration states that homophobia is an evil that runs counter to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is an evil akin to racism, anti-Semitism and apartheid.
Although Taiwan has unjustly been excluded from the UN, I believe that Taiwan should do its best to follow international norms and laws, especially in regard to civil and human rights. I believe that Taiwan should implement a strong Gender Equality Law. Not only should discrimination based on gender be forbidden, people should also not be victims of discrimination based on sexual orientation. Women, gays and lesbians should never experience the pain and fear of harassment in the workforce or other places in society.
It is also my hope that the Taiwanese legislature and courts will allow gay marriages, or at least the protection and sanction provided by “civil unions.”
The more human rights are protected in Taiwan, the stronger its society will become.
Homophobia, like racism and anti-Semitism, is hatred born of fear and ignorance. One should never forget that the Nazi ideology called for the extermination of people belonging to “inferior races,” as well as Jews and homosexuals. People belonging to these groups were deemed by the Nazis as “unfit to live.”
To quote Elie Wiesel’s acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo on Dec. 10, 1986: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders become irrelevant, Wherever men and women are persecuted ... that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe.
“There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention ... Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. How can one not be sensitive to their plight? Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere ... There is so much to be done, there is so much that can be done ... We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would be to betray them.”
MICHAEL SCANLON
East Hartford, Connecticut
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
I have heard people equate the government’s stance on resisting forced unification with China or the conditional reinstatement of the military court system with the rise of the Nazis before World War II. The comparison is absurd. There is no meaningful parallel between the government and Nazi Germany, nor does such a mindset exist within the general public in Taiwan. It is important to remember that the German public bore some responsibility for the horrors of the Holocaust. Post-World War II Germany’s transitional justice efforts were rooted in a national reckoning and introspection. Many Jews were sent to concentration camps not