Amnesty International has issued a thinly disguised warning to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), urging him not to use excessive police force to control and break up the unauthorized protest march planned for tomorrow by the “Wild Strawberry” student movement.
“Taiwan’s Control Yuan should address the serious concerns raised by civil society in Taiwan and the government should cease the practice of using the Assembly and Parade Law to deny freedom of assembly and allow individuals to protest peacefully,” read a statement released by Amnesty International offices around the world on Thursday.
The statement has helped draw global attention to the protests and a Washington-based Western diplomat said it was now certain that “the eyes of the world” would be on Taiwan this weekend.
It is the latest in a string of international criticisms in recent weeks of the Ma administration’s alleged misuse of the Taiwanese justice and police systems to undermine human rights.
Freedom House — the US-based pro-Democracy group — has called for an independent investigation into violent clashes between police and activists protesting the visit to Taiwan by Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
The International Federation for Human Rights has also charged that arrests and violence during the visit were “grave violations of human rights under the pretext of national security,” and a substantial number of foreign experts on Taiwan called for reform in two open letters published by the Taipei Times.
Amnesty International also called for the Control Yuan to conduct an independent inquiry into alleged excessive police force during the protests last month.
“Civil society groups in Taiwan are investigating multiple claims that individuals suffered head injuries and broken fingers at the hands of police during the protests,” said the Amnesty statement.
It added: “Taiwanese civil society groups claim that police have applied the Assembly and Parade Law arbitrarily to silence dissent.
“Taiwanese police and judicial authorities should ensure that they investigate any protesters accused of engaging in violence in a fair, transparent and timely manner in compliance with international standards,” the statement said.
The Wild Strawberry Student Movement has staged sit-ins since Nov. 6 to protest what they consider the use of excessive force during Chen’s visit.
In related news, the Paris-based Club des Taiwanais — formed by Taiwanese living in France — plans to condemn the Ma administration in an event to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Paris tomorrow.
“Several incidents in Taiwan have sparked reactions from international human rights groups,” the club said in a statement on its Web site. “And this crisis of setbacks in human rights is related to China’s political expansion.”
The statement cited the large-scale detention of opposition politicians, the alleged police brutality against anti-China protesters during Chen’s visit and Ma’s remark on Wednesday that the time was inappropriate for the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan as examples of a regression in human rights.
“All these [incidents] have led to a lot of criticism, but Ma resolved to employ harsher measures against the critiques,” the statement said in English. “When university students staged a sit-in protest, demanding that relevant government officials be punished, Ma responded with promotion of police chiefs engaged in human rights abuses.”
The Club des Taiwanais will make the statement at the event, which was organized by the Federation des Pays Asiatiques pour les Droits de l’Homme (Federation of Asian Countries for Human Rights), and it called on people from all countries to “support human rights in Taiwan by pressuring through all possible channels and express your support to those Taiwanese who are fighting against government violence.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LOA IOK-SIN
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS