The nation is on a dangerous path toward a return to authoritarian rule given the precipitous erosion of freedom and personal rights under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government led by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), academics and civil liberty groups said on Tuesday.
Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) chairman Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said there are more crackdowns and violence by the state apparatus against civilians these days, a clear indication that democracy and human rights protections are sliding backward.
He was speaking at an event to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the end of Martial Law, which was imposed by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) KMT regime in 1949.
“TAHR was founded 30 years ago to counter the state violence practiced by the KMT at the time. But now, after six years of Ma Ying-jeou’s rule, we see the police and security forces are increasingly using Martial Law-era tactics against people. They use water cannons, truncheons and other weapons against protesters in peaceful demonstrations,” Chiu said.
He said police action of today “makes us feel like we are back in the Martial Law years.”
Chiu said some progress has been made, citing court decisions, including a case in which residents opposed a windmill project in Miaoli County and a case of a protester throwing a shoe toward Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻).
He said the court ruling in these cases conformed more to the expectations of democratic values and protection of personal liberty.
“This shows that under our society’s enhanced understanding and education of the judicial process, the judiciary system is making strides to reflect society’s democratic principles,” Chiu said.
Wu Ching-chin (吳景欽), law professor at Aletheia University in New Taipei City, said Ma is duplicitous with the public.
“Ma said his government approved two important international conventions — the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR),” Wu said. “Yet when we look what is happening and examine the actual implementation, Ma is continually violating these two conventions.”
Ma invited experts for a conference on Taiwan’s human rights and its reporting mechanism, and the international panel asked that the government supply information on wiretapping, Wu said.
“At that time, the government said there was no problem,” Wu said. “But a few months later, in September, the big wiretapping scandal broke involving Ma and [former prosecutor-general] Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) with illegal phone surveillance of legislators and top-ranked politicians.”
“The case showed the extensive abuse of power by Huang and the judiciary in carrying out illegal wiretapping and surveillance activities,” Wu said. “International experts also asked the Ma government to provide evidence that it followed due process of law, and upheld the integrity of judicial investigation. But the Ministry of Justice responded by saying Taiwan already has laws and regulations covering it, while refusing to provide any evidence of implementation and meting out disciplinary measures.”
Lee Shiao-feng (李筱峰), a professor at National Taipei University of Education’s Graduate School of Taiwanese Culture, said Taiwan’s democratic transition was led by waves of civil liberty and rights movements, which forced the government to make changes.
“[Former president] Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) had the frame of mind to go with the change. [Former president] Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had the personality to foster democratic transition. In the end, they spurred on Taiwan’s democratic evolution and abolishment of martial law,” Lee said. “However, Ma Ying-jeou’s personality and state of mind are very much for authoritarian rule and opposed to democratic values. In 1987, Ma was startled when he learned Chiang was going to lift martial law.”
“Through the political evolution of the past decades, Ma held steadfast positions against democracy, whether it was the legislative change to democratic representation or the change allowing citizens to vote directly for a president,” Lee Shiao-feng said.
He said Ma surrounds himself with an inner circle of KMT politicians who were the privileged elites of power and money during the Martial Law years, but those people played with and bent the rules during the democratic transition to make gains following the end of martial law.
“Ma and these political elites are involved in voracious power grabbing. Without any mechanism for checks and balances, they are concentrating political power, governmental control and special business privileges within this small group of elites,” Lee Shiao-feng said. “They are strongly holding on to their control of this nation. People must see through this and stop it from happening, When all citizens have awoken and take action, only then can we dismantle this elite group.”
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant