Minister of Justice Wang Ching-feng (王清峰) vowed yesterday to improve treatment of detainees amid widespread criticism and concerns about human rights violations during investigations.
“We are going to use the UN’s and other countries’ regulations as references and thoroughly review and modify [treatment of detainees] so that our protection of detainees’ human rights will live up to international standards,” Wang said when approached for comment in the legislature.
Wang said the ministry had established a special task force to review detention regulations, including those covering hair, the availability of hot water for washing and prosecutors’ authority to request suspects be detained before trial.
The ministry was criticized after former National Security Council secretary-general Chiou I-jen (邱義仁), who has been detained for alleged corruption, was spotted by reporters with a crew cut.
Wang said the ministry was also reviewing the appropriateness of handcuffing former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) when he was detained on Nov. 11 for alleged money laundering. Prosecutors are supposed to only handcuff suspects who may commit a violent crime, commit suicide or escape, she said.
“There have been some [concerns] like several advertisements [sic] published in the Taipei Times. Some international figures questioned why our Special Investigation Panel only focused its investigations on [former] government officials affiliated with the pan-green camp,” she said.
Wang was referring to an open letter from former American Institute in Taiwan chairman Nat Bellocchi and several others published by the Taipei Times on Tuesday. The signatories said they remained concerned about “choices made by prosecutors in applying existing legal authority and strongly believe in the need for reform” following the detention of several officials of the former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration.
The government was determined to push judicial reform, Wang said.
“We will do what should be done in terms of human rights protection,” she said. “This government faces problems and solves them. The nation pushed democratic reform in the past. There’s no reason we can’t push [judicial reform] in the 21st century.”
Meanwhile, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑), head of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee, will leave for Washington on Sunday. His delegation will explain to US officials that the KMT government has not violated human rights during the investigations of former DPP officials.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but