A pro-independence organization yesterday released a documentary recounting how the police used excessive force to block people from expressing their opinions and protesting during the visit of Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), and said the documentary would be delivered to several international human rights organizations in the hope they would pay more attention to Taiwan’s human rights situation.
“By producing the documentary, we hope to draw the attention of international society [to the fact] that human rights in Taiwan have been seriously violated and democracy has been jeopardized during President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration,” Secretary-General of the Taiwan Society Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政) told a press conference yesterday.
The documentary was shown during the press conference. The film contained footage of national flags being taken from people carrying or waving them by police officers, police pushing protesters and people injured in clashes with police officers, and police officers rushing into a record store and forcing it to close while it was playing a patriotic Taiwanese song.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
International human rights worker Lynn Miles said that Taiwan had been a free country.
Foreigners who visited Taiwan usually felt it was freer than many other countries. But Taiwan’s human rights were jeopardized during the Chen incident, Miles said.
He said as a human rights worker living in Taiwan for many years, he could not believe what happened during Chen’s visit.
Former Government Information Office (GIO) minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) said Ma was schooled in the authoritarian tactics of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), and that he never really understood the ideas of human rights and democracy. Ma had done nothing in his life to promote human rights or democracy, Shieh added.
The Ma administration’s alleged misuse of the Taiwanese justice system and police to undermine human rights have drawn international criticism in recent weeks.
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 Chen.
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 called for the Control Yuan to conduct an independent inquiry into alleged excessive police force during the protests last month.
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
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