Protesters heckle Chen at park opening

The opening of a park commemorating victims of military repression during the Martial Law era attracted activists keen to criticize the government over their own human rights.

Holding that read "Give me back my human rights, stop demolishing Lo Sheng" and "Learn a lesson, designate it a historic site," around 50 patients from the Lo Sheng Sanatorium and members of the Lo Sheng Conservation Self-Help Association staged a sit-in outside the Taiwan Human Rights Jingmei Park in Sindian (新店), Taipei County.

After failing to convince the protesters to abandon their sit-in, law enforcement officers began to carry the protesters, kicking and shouting slogans, away from the park.

The protest was over by the time President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) arrived to deliver a speech. Chen was heckled however, by a man who flashed a "thumbs down" gesture and called for him to step down. The man was taked away by security personnel and police officers.

Three of the Lo Sheng Conservation Self-Help Association staged a last-ditch protest when Chen was wrapping up his speech. As they did one was slapped on the face by a man claiming to have been a political prisoner during the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) authoritarian regime.

Responding the allegations that his administration violates human rights, Chen said the protesters should remember how the KMT regime treated prisoners fighting for Taiwan's democracy at their detention center. The park is located where a military court and detention center used to stand during the Martial Law era.

"You should have seen the cell that held Admiral Wang Hsi-ling (汪希苓), it was like heaven, while those detaining democracy activists were like hell," Chen said.

Wang, former head of the Military Intelligence Bureau, reportedly gave the order for gang boss Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮) to kill Chinese-American writer Henry Liu (劉宜良) before he could publish a biography critical of former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).

Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who spent nearly seven months at the center, said that during the 38 years of martial law, 3,000 to 4,000 prisoners had been executed and 130,000 jailed.

Lu sentenced to a 12-year term on charges of sedition for a 20 minute speech on human rights she delivered in December 1979.

Lu, the driving force behind the establishment of the park, said it had not been created to provoke enmity but to remind future generations that freedom does not come easily.

TSU candidate Li Yi-chieh (李宜潔), who joined the protest, claimed that police pulled her away by her hair, saying that it was ironic that the administration had breached her rights on World Human Rights Day.

TELEPHONE TAPS

Meanwhile, the Judicial Yuan announced yesterday that approval of telephone taps for criminal investigations would be transferred from district prosecutor offices to the Taiwan High Court.

The Judicial Yuan said the Council of Grand Justices had decided in July that it was unconstitutional for prosecutors to grant telephone monitoring for criminal investigations and that this duty must be transferred to the judiciary.

Presently do not have to inform individuals whose telephones are being tapped when the monitoring operation is over.

But judges -- under the new law -- will be required to do so.

The Judicial Yuan said the new law would enhance human rights.

Additional reporting by staff writer