It has been 21 years since the Tiananmen Square Massacre. As everyone in Taiwan reflects on the pros and cons of establishing closer trade relations with China and trying to reach some kind of consensus on what Taiwan can expect from an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA), perhaps a quick review of the state of human rights in China will help us focus on the type of relationship we want.
Media reports show there were four separate incidents of mentally ill people stabbing children and teachers to death in kindergartens and elementary schools in Fujian, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Shaanxi provinces between March 28 and May 12. One of the attackers committed suicide, while two were sentenced to death and executed.
To use the attack that occurred in Taizhou City in Jiangsu as an example, on April 29, Xu Yuyuan (徐玉元) charged into a kindergarten armed with a knife, injuring 29 students and three teachers. He was executed on May 30, less than a month after the attack.
Chinese media have said Xu confessed to the crime and, although the attack did not result in any deaths, his motives were described as evil and therefore punishable by death under Chinese law. Most foreign media reports have said Xu was motivated by the unfair demolition and relocation of real estate. Official government statements and the court’s decision avoided the issue entirely and rushed through the execution.
After four years without executions in Taiwan, four death row inmates were shot on April 30, without any prior notice. After the executions, the Council of Grand Justices declined to offer constitutional interpretations of the cases of other death row inmates. Human rights groups protested strongly and questioned whether the grand justices actually understood the two UN human rights covenants passed into Taiwanese law last year.
These groups also held a press conference at which they expressed their anger over the issue and distributed copies of the covenants printed backwards — the implication being that the grand justices failed to understand the covenants because they read them backwards. The human rights groups also demanded that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) keep his promise to abolish the death penalty.
China still refuses to disclose information on the number of executions it carries out and usually passes sentence and carries out the execution quickly. This illustrates the difference between the way the death penalty is handled in Taiwan and China.
Another serious matter linked to human rights is the increasingly dangerous situation for human rights lawyers in China. One example is the plight of Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), who in 2005 was charged with inciting subversion and given a three-year prison sentence, suspended for five years, in addition to being subjected to long term surveillance, all for writing three open letters calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
In February last year, Gao was detained again for more than a year. In early March this year, he appeared in public but then disappeared, which almost certainly means he has been secretly taken into custody again.
Another way China controls human rights lawyers is to rob them of the right to work. Put simply, judicial departments often fail human rights lawyers by revoking their compulsory annual professional examinations without any legal reasons, thus blocking them from working as lawyers either temporarily or for life.
This is one weapon the Chinese government uses to intimidate human rights lawyers to prevent them from helping disadvantaged citizens persecuted by the government. The most recent example is the case of two lawyers, Tang Jitian (唐吉田) and Liu Wei (劉巍), who had their licenses revoked permanently simply for defending Falun Gong practitioners in court.
In contrast, Taiwanese lawyers are working assiduously to demand complete rights as lawyers from the judicial authorities on the basis of the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which has been incorporated into national legislation.
For example, when arrested and detained, suspects should be allowed to see a lawyer immediately to give them access to legal assistance. Such laws were recently passed by the legislature when amending the Code of Criminal Procedure (刑事訴訟法).
On the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre, let us all remember human rights.
Lin Feng-jeng is a lawyer and executive director of the Judicial Reform Foundation.
TRANSLATED BY DREW CAMERON
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