With the Taipei District Court to deliver its verdict in the corruption trial against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) today, Chen said he did not care what ruling is handed down and repeated that he was the victim of “political persecution” by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
“Let it be,” he said. “At least my heart is free. Everything is changing now and I believe there will be changes soon.”
Chen made the remarks in an article he wrote for the first issue of the relaunched pro-democracy Neo Formosa Weekly (蓬萊島雜誌), which resumed publication in electronic form yesterday.
Chen, a former president of the magazine, said he was convicted of libel and imprisoned in June 1986 for publishing an article that said former New Party lawmaker Elmer Feng’s (馮滬祥) doctoral dissertation had been plagiarized.
Now incarcerated again, Chen said it was not for “treason,” but for “corruption,” the essence of which he described as “political persecution, regardless of the accusation.”
“Now I am writing this article in my tiny cell for the first online issue of Neo Formosa Weekly,” he wrote. “What irony that Taiwan’s democracy has regressed so much.”
Chen and his wife, Wu Shu-jen (吳淑珍), were indicted in December on charges of embezzling NT$104 million (US$3 million) from the president’s discretionary “state affairs” fund. They are also accused of accepting NT$100 million in bribes and US$6 million in connection with a land procurement deal, as well as US$2.73 million in kickbacks to help a contractor win a tender for a government construction project.
Chen has denied all the charges. The court is set to announce its verdict today for Chen and his 13 co-defendants.
The former president urged Taiwanese to join him in seeking de jure independence, saying that now was the best time ever to do so.
In related news, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) yesterday told guests at the Presidential Office that there was much room for improvement in terms of solidifying the rule of law in Taiwan, but congratulated himself for what he said was his careful exercise of power.
Ma said that those in power had to guard against corruption and abusing their authority.
Citing the example of calls for him to declare a state of emergency amid the crisis left behind by Typhoon Morakot, Ma said he would have risked abusing his power had he given in to public pressure.
“I’d like to leave a legacy of building a country based on the rule of law,” he said. “That is the main reason why I am willing to find time to see you today.”
The president made the remarks while meeting his former mentor Jerome Cohen at the Presidential Office yesterday morning.
Cohen, a professor of law at Harvard University, has written a number of articles calling on the Taiwanese government to pay attention to legal reform.
Ever since high school, Ma said, his dream was to build a democratic country governed by the rule of law, adding that he would never abandon this dream even if he needed to take great risks or withstand withering criticism.
Ma told Cohen that despite its free elections, the rule of law in Taiwan still had a long way to go.
The president said protecting human rights was his top priority and that he had signed two UN conventions in May in a bid to bring the country’s human rights standards in line with those of the world’s leading countries.
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