Taiwan Democracy Watch yesterday released a manifesto entitled the “Declaration of Free Men” and called for a step-by-step process to remold relations across the Taiwan Strait on the basis of human rights.
The group of pro-democracy academics, which is scheduled to host a seminar today to discuss cross-strait human rights development, called for a two-stage approach to promote peace across the Strait in a press release, proposing an “early harvest human rights list” as a short-term goal and the signing of a human rights charter as a long-term goal.
“The protection of human rights would be the foundation of mutual political trust,” the group said.
Taiwan and China should recognize each other’s sovereignty and develop bilateral ties based on constitutionalism, it said.
The group also listed four areas in what it called an “early harvest human rights list”: human rights protection and legal assistance for detainees on both sides of the Strait, the inclusion of a human rights clause in current agreements, the signing of agreements on personal safety and protection of the freedom of the press.
The group called on China to carry out judicial reform and protect freedom of speech and publishing and on Taiwan to establish a national agency in charge of human rights, enact a statute on cross-strait agreement monitoring and bolster its compliance to international human rights covenants.
It said Taiwan and China could discuss a human rights charter, which could serve as the basis of interaction between the two sides.
“Taiwan Democracy Watch opposes any form of political negotiation and political agreement — be it called military confidence-building measures, peace accord, mid-term agreement or plan for the final political solution — before the charter is signed and fully implemented,” the group said.
“People on both sides of the Strait can discuss their future relationship only when they are free from military threats and when their rights, freedom, democracy are protected,” it said.
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