Saying that human rights conditions in Taiwan are deteriorating and that the judicial system is biased, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) — himself an attorney — convened a group of lawyers yesterday and created an alliance to defend civil rights.
“Democracy and human rights are crucial to Taiwan’s prosperity. However, recent events have shown that such values are under attack,” Hsieh told a press conference to inaugurate the Taiwanese Attorneys’ Alliance for Human Rights.
Hsieh was referring to corruption cases against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) and former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Su was detained for nine days before she was summoned to testify at a prosecutors’ office where she was charged. Chen, who has yet to be indicted, was detained on Wednesday.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
“As lawyers, we support putting anyone who may have broken the law on trial, but what we’re seeing is more of a purge than a fair trial,” Hsieh said. “The difference between a purge and a regular judiciary is that in the first instance, you characterize someone as evil — through the media or by other means — before the trial has begun.”
Lin Yu-fen (林玉芬), a lawyer affiliated with the alliance, accused law-enforcement authorities of violating people’s rights and civil liberties by using excessive force and acting illegally while dispersing crowds at anti-China protests during the visit by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) to Taipei earlier this month.
Witness accounts and media reports have shown police officers forcefully taking away Republic of China flags from demonstrators, stopping and checking the identity of individuals who wore T-shirts manifesting Taiwan as a sovereign country and asking a music store owner to stop playing music while trying to close the store’s front door.
National Police Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) dismissed the accusations and said the video clips and accounts were taken out of context. He has refused to apologize.
Hsieh said further rights violations were to be expected.
“The government refuses to listen to voices from the opposition, so more people will take to the street and become victims [of police brutality],” Hsieh said. “This is why I created this alliance, to help those [potential] victims, [who could include] workers and students.”
“If we don’t make things right today, maybe my children and grandchildren, or your children and grandchildren, will be the victims tomorrow,” he said.
The Taipei City Government yesterday said contractors organizing its New Year’s Eve celebrations would be held responsible after a jumbo screen played a Beijing-ran television channel near the event’s end. An image showing China Central Television (CCTV) Channel 3 being displayed was posted on the social media platform Threads, sparking an outcry on the Internet over Beijing’s alleged political infiltration of the municipal government. A Taipei Department of Information and Tourism spokesman said event workers had made a “grave mistake” and that the Television Broadcasts Satellite (TVBS) group had the contract to operate the screens. The city would apply contractual penalties on TVBS
A new board game set against the backdrop of armed conflict around Taiwan is to be released next month, amid renewed threats from Beijing, inviting players to participate in an imaginary Chinese invasion 20 years from now. China has ramped up military activity close to Taiwan in the past few years, including massing naval forces around the nation. The game, titled 2045, tasks players with navigating the troubles of war using colorful action cards and role-playing as characters involved in operations 10 days before a fictional Chinese invasion of Taiwan. That includes members of the armed forces, Chinese sleeper agents and pro-China politicians
The lowest temperature in a low-lying area recorded early yesterday morning was in Miaoli County’s Gongguan Township (公館), at 6.8°C, due to a strong cold air mass and the effect of radiative cooling, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. In other areas, Chiayi’s East District (東區) recorded a low of 8.2°C and Yunlin County’s Huwei Township (虎尾) recorded 8.5°C, CWA data showed. The cold air mass was at its strongest from Saturday night to the early hours of yesterday. It brought temperatures down to 9°C to 11°C in areas across the nation and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties,
STAY VIGILANT: When experiencing symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, such as dizziness or fatigue, near a water heater, open windows and doors to ventilate the area Rooftop flue water heaters should only be installed outdoors or in properly ventilated areas to prevent toxic gas from building up, the Yilan County Fire Department said, after a man in Taipei died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday last week. The 39-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳), an assistant professor at Providence University in Taichung, was at his Taipei home for the holidays when the incident occurred, news reports said. He was taking a shower in the bathroom of a rooftop addition when carbon monoxide — a poisonous byproduct of combustion — leaked from a water heater installed in a poorly ventilated
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