Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday urged the government to take a more pro-active role in rescuing human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who has been detained by Chinese authorities and charged with subversion of state power.
Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜), and members of a human rights group visited Lee Teng-hui’s residence in Taipei to seek his assistance in securing her husband’s release.
The former president said the government has to take more active measures to rescue Lee Ming-che, adding that it is useless if the government “can only express its concern” about the case, Taiwan Association for China Human Rights chairman Yang Hsien-hung (楊憲宏) quoted him as saying.
Photo: CNA
The National Security Council should form an interministerial task force to use all the leverage it has to bargain with China, Yang quoted Lee Teng-hui as saying.
Lee Ching-yu last month testified before a US House of Representative subcommittee about the arrest of her husband.
Lee Teng-hui described her testimony as “a correct and meaningful move.”
The former president thanked the US government for its help, while asking the Taiwanese government to be more involved in rescuing Lee Ming-che, Yang said.
Yang quoted Lee Teng-hui as saying that it was unimaginable that China has not revealed any information regarding Lee Ming-che’s whereabouts 87 days after his detention.
China is still like the “bandit” Lee Teng-hui dealt with during the Qiandao Lake Incident in 1994, in which Chinese robbers murdered Taiwanese tourists — an incident that Chinese authorities attempted to cover up, Yang quoted the former president as saying.
The former president praised Lee Ming-che’s sharing of Taiwanese ideas about democracy with Chinese, which was justifiable as China is also experiencing its own democratization, a major factor in the issue of Taiwanese independence, Yang said.
China’s Taiwan Affairs Office yesterday said it has hired a lawyer for Lee Ming-che per his request, adding that the case was of a criminal nature, not a human rights case as described by Taipei and Washington.
Lee Ching-yu, who in March announced that she would not hire a lawyer to defend Lee Ming-che, as it would amount to “putting up a show with China,” denounced the statement, saying it is ridiculous for Beijing to claim it is respecting the opinion of a person it has held incommunicado for 87 days.
“What Lee Ming-che did in China involved education, humanitarian aid and freedom of expression — all of which are acceptable in Taiwanese society,” she said. “However, China has accused him of involvement in criminal activities, which is the most important reason why China and Taiwan cannot communicate.”
“With his suffering, Lee Ming-che is making the world see how Chinese civilization has deteriorated and is warning the world against entering such a dangerous place,” she said.
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
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
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash