The director of studies at US-based Freedom House yesterday accused state-owned Central News Agency (CNA) of “misapprehending” his comments regarding the judicial process in Taiwan and claiming that he saw a recent verdict against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) as positive for Taiwan’s democratic development.
The Formosa Foundation, a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization, invited Christopher Walker to give a speech on freedom in Taiwan on Sunday, in which he focused on democratic processes, institutional transparency and media freedom in Taiwan and the region.
However, a CNA report of the event released the following day misrepresented his remarks on the judicial process in Taiwan in a way that made it appear he was specifically commenting on the corruption cases against Chen, Walker said.
The Chinese-language report, which has not been translated into English by the wire service, read: “After former president Chen Shui-bian recently [on Nov. 11] received his final [guilty] verdict, Christopher Walker ... said he believes that while this was a tough choice to make, punishing a corrupt regime with jail will help Taiwan’s democratic system become stronger.”
Still quoting Walker, the report continued: “Administrations that do not pay any attention to corruption will end eventually.”
“Walker said that strong democratic systems are generally not influenced by isolated events, however, because Taiwan is a young democracy, events like the Chen case will give rise to discussions about whether Taiwan’s democratic system is strong enough,” the article added.
Those passages, Walker told the Taipei Times yesterday, misrepresented what he said and put words in his mouth.
“Freedom House places emphasis on key areas of the democratic process and does not take a position on a specific case, as was suggested in these media reports relating to the case of former president Chen,” he said.
“Rather, our assessments focus on the degree to which a country’s institutions are operating in a transparent and accountable manner, and according to the rule of law,” Walker added.
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The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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