Sometimes one can’t help but wonder whether President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), in the dead of night, ever finds his conscience stirring as he reflects on words he used during the day.
In a speech titled “Reform, Innovation and Pursuit of Justice,” Ma, in his Double Ten National Day address, pledged to set up a human rights consultative committee under the Presidential Office in a bid to improve human rights in Taiwan.
“I promise that with regard to any issue pertaining to social justice, environmental justice or judicial integrity, we will take active steps to meet the expectations of our people,” Ma said. He also vowed that the government would work “to further promote the development and protection of human rights and basic freedoms.”
The words may look pretty in print and sound impressive, but who was Ma trying to fool? In case he hasn’t realized, it was under his presidency these past two years that Taiwanese suffered the most severe infringements of their individual human rights in the past decade.
The public wasn’t blind, and it wasn’t an illusion when they witnessed police using excessive force to stop people expressing themselves with Republic of China (ROC) national flags during Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin’s (陳雲林) visit in November 2008.
Nor were Taiwanese having delusions when they saw people dragged from their afternoon tea simply because they were at the same hotel where Chen was staying or people questioned by police on the streets for wearing T-shirts bearing the words “Taiwan is my country” and pulled over for riding scooters decorated with Tibetan flags.
The public wasn’t deaf, either — it wasn’t make--believe when young girls screamed after their fingers were injured by police officers who forcibly wrested ROC flags out of their hands; nor was it untrue that a music store was forced by police to stop playing the Song of Taiwan.
More instances of human rights under Ma: The Wild Strawberry Student Movement was formed after the Ma government used excessive force against the public; increasing allegations surfaced of government meddling in the Public Television Service; and the government demonstrated dubious intentions during the controversial name-change of the Taiwan Human Rights Memorial to Jingmei Cultural Park.
In view of all these disturbing reports of how public rights, freedom of speech and freedom of the press have been eroded by government action, Ma has only himself to blame when Taiwanese take his pledges with a grain of salt.
Ma trumpets the fact that his administration in May last year ratified two UN human rights covenants — the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. However, China also signed those covenants, yet it continues to brutalize its people, so Ma should stop patting himself on the back and take concrete actions to win people’s respect.
As Ma so well put it in his National Day speech: “Democracy and freedom have come to define the spirit of Taiwan.”
The public is waiting to see what Ma has to offer as he revamps his human rights protection pledges. Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before the public looks back on Ma’s establishment of the so-called human rights consultative committee as one of the biggest ironies of his administration.
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