Nov
28
Criticism of Taiwan’s Protest Crackdown Goes International
Filed Under China, Personal Freedom, Taiwan | 1 Comment
What a world…the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is criticizing Taiwan’s democratically elected government for its recent, and very un-democratic, crackdown on recent protests by Taiwanese citizens. The great irony is that the KMT run Taiwan government suppressed the freedoms of speech and assembly of its own people in an effort to appease a visiting official from Communist China, one of the world’s great human rights violators. A very sad event.
From the FIDH statement:
According to the information received, since November 3rd, 2008, the city of Taipei has been heavily occupied by more than 7,000 police officers. The authorities have taken many drastic measures, including: confiscating and damaging private property, harassing and assaulting people who came too close to undefined or vaguely defined areas, clearing communal highway lanes with force, conducting random searches and arrests, and restricting the freedom of movement of citizens. These actions have been taken during Mr. CHEN’s visit, in the name of protecting security.
However, we fear these aggressions in fact aim at suppressing the right to freedom of expression of citizens. To supplement this violence, there are also unprecedented restrictions which clearly overpass the limits of ensuring security. For example, citizens have been restricted from displaying or carrying the national flag of Taiwan, forbidden to declare that “Taiwan is not part of China”, forbidden from carrying filming devices, and restricted from playing any music the authorities consider inappropriate.
These measures seem to be aimed at silencing political opinions rather than protecting security, and thus they blatantly violate the Constitution of Taiwan, notably Articles 11 and 14 which protect freedom of expression and international human rights standards. Consequently, FIDH requests that the National Police Agency and National Security Bureau, bound by the Constitution and the national legislation, should be held responsible for violating their legal obligations. The Judicial Yuan and Control Yuan should immediately conduct independent and impartial investigations into all allegations of human rights violations and hold all personnel in office accountable for neglecting their civil and legal obligations, in line with the Judicial Yuan’s recent statement that “it is very important to form an objective and solid review standard, and make the constitutional reviews more predictable and trust-worthy to people”. Those who perpetrated these violations, particularly in the National Police Agency and National Security Bureau, must be held accountable, in accordance with Article 24 of the Constitution of Taiwan, which stipulates that “Any public employee who, in violation of law, infringes upon the freedom or right of any person shall, in addition to being subject to disciplinary punishment in accordance with law, be liable to criminal and civil action. The victim may, in accordance with law, claim damages from the State for any injury sustained therefrom.”
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To the chagrin of the international observers, the KMT government would not admit to any violation of its own Constitution but also ostensibly “promoted” all the policemen who vehemently carried out the government orders.
The Control Yuan is impotent and the Judicial Yuan is “owned” by the KMT. Protest after protest, hunger strike after hunger strike, the Ma Ying-Jeou government would not flinch, it would not stop but continue to go down the road of unification with China. In merely 6 months after taking office, Ma’s KMT machine has systematically hollowed out Taiwan’s treasury, technical/commercial advantages, and its hard earned freedom on the one hand and drum up media frenzy with numerous high profile arrests of current and former DPP officials to divert attention on the other hand.
Ma Ying-Jeou is not afraid of the dissent of the people of Taiwan for he now controls the resources of the government, including the military, the police , the national security apparatus, the investigative/prosecutorial bureau, the courts, plus 80% of the press and media. And if the situation gets out of hand, he has Beijing and the PLA backing him… At the same time, Taiwan’s freedom protector, the U.S., is too busy with her wars, financial crisis, and transition of power…
What an opportune window for the Sino-centric strategists.