A group of human rights campaigners yesterday urged the public to show their support for Taiwanese human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) by writing him a New Year or birthday card, adding that they would present another report on Lee’s case at a UN meeting in February.
Lee was on Nov. 28 sentenced to five years in prison by the Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Hunan Province, which found him guilty of subversion of state power for holding online political lectures and helping the families of jailed Chinese dissidents.
Lee went missing on March 19 after entering Zhuhai, China, from Macau. More than two months later the Chinese Ministry of State Security announced that he had been arrested on a charge of subversion of state power.
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
His wife, Lee Ching-yu (李淨瑜), and human rights advocates have been seeking his release by appealing to different organizations, including the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances.
“Since Lee Ming-che was sentenced to five years in prison last month, I have not yet received any official documents about his prosecution and conviction,” Lee Ching-yu told a news conference at the legislature in Taipei yesterday.
As they do not know where he is being held, they can only mail the cards to the place where he was last seen — a detention center in Hunan’s Changsha County, she said.
His birthday is on Feb. 25 and people can write him a New Year or birthday card to lend him some warmth in such hard times, she said.
They are not sure whether the cards would reach Lee Ming-che, but Taiwanese should continue supporting him and let Beijing know that they will not succumb to Chinese pressure, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said.
Lee Ching-yu has demonstrated admirable efforts and resolution in appealing for her husband’s release, but she has become the target of a smear campaign that says she is merely paving the way for a political career, former DPP Legislator Wang Li-ping (王麗萍) said, lamenting society’s lack of support for Lee Ming-che’s case.
People willing to support their cause can mail the cards themselves or send them to the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, association secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) said.
Lee Ming-che’s supporters had made a report about his case to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances in Geneva, Switzerland, in September, and are to present an updated report on his status to the group in February, Chiu said, adding that the group has not yet set a date for the presentation.
STILL COMMITTED: The US opposes any forced change to the ‘status quo’ in the Strait, but also does not seek conflict, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said US President Donald Trump’s administration released US$5.3 billion in previously frozen foreign aid, including US$870 million in security exemptions for programs in Taiwan, a list of exemptions reviewed by Reuters showed. Trump ordered a 90-day pause on foreign aid shortly after taking office on Jan. 20, halting funding for everything from programs that fight starvation and deadly diseases to providing shelters for millions of displaced people across the globe. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has said that all foreign assistance must align with Trump’s “America First” priorities, issued waivers late last month on military aid to Israel and Egypt, the
France’s nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and accompanying warships were in the Philippines yesterday after holding combat drills with Philippine forces in the disputed South China Sea in a show of firepower that would likely antagonize China. The Charles de Gaulle on Friday docked at Subic Bay, a former US naval base northwest of Manila, for a break after more than two months of deployment in the Indo-Pacific region. The French carrier engaged with security allies for contingency readiness and to promote regional security, including with Philippine forces, navy ships and fighter jets. They held anti-submarine warfare drills and aerial combat training on Friday in
COMBAT READINESS: The military is reviewing weaponry, personnel resources, and mobilization and recovery forces to adjust defense strategies, the defense minister said The military has released a photograph of Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) appearing to sit beside a US general during the annual Han Kuang military exercises on Friday last week in a historic first. In the photo, Koo, who was presiding over the drills with high-level officers, appears to be sitting next to US Marine Corps Major General Jay Bargeron, the director of strategic planning and policy of the US Indo-Pacific Command, although only Bargeron’s name tag is visible in the seat as “J5 Maj General.” It is the first time the military has released a photo of an active
CHANGE OF MIND: The Chinese crew at first showed a willingness to cooperate, but later regretted that when the ship arrived at the port and refused to enter Togolese Republic-registered Chinese freighter Hong Tai (宏泰號) and its crew have been detained on suspicion of deliberately damaging a submarine cable connecting Taiwan proper and Penghu County, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement yesterday. The case would be subject to a “national security-level investigation” by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office, it added. The administration said that it had been monitoring the ship since 7:10pm on Saturday when it appeared to be loitering in waters about 6 nautical miles (11km) northwest of Tainan’s Chiang Chun Fishing Port, adding that the ship’s location was about 0.5 nautical miles north of the No.
RSS