The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) yesterday opened its 40th congress in Taipei, the first time the event has been held in Asia.
More than 400 rights advocates, government officials and experts from 184 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in 112 countries are attending the five-day congress, said the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, which is cohosting the event.
Taiwan was chosen to host this year’s congress, which is held every three years, because it is a vibrant democracy, which “stands in stark counterpoint to many of its regional neighbors,” the federation said.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
In a speech at the opening ceremony, President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said the government is committed to improving human rights protection in a wide range of areas.
Her administration has introduced measures to eliminate workplace discrimination against women, promoted judicial reforms and pushed legislation to make Taiwan the first Asian nation to legalize same-sex marriage, she said.
“I have to tell you it was not an easy process to go through, but we finally made it,” she said.
Photo: CNA
The road to human rights is a long one, but together with NGOs, the government would continue to work toward building “a fairer and more just” Taiwan, she said.
The congress will hopefully provide an opportunity for Taiwan to learn from other nations’ experiences and share its own, Tsai added.
Under this year’s theme of “Our Right, Our Fight, Our Future — Reclaiming the Universality of Human Rights,” congress delegates hope to explore questions such as how to ensure equal rights for minorities and in cross-border situations, association president Clarence Chou (周宇修) said.
The sharing of experience between advocates and experts from different parts of the world is essential in the fight to improve human rights, he said.
The ceremony also featured an open plea from former death row inmate Hsu Tzu-chiang (徐自強) for Chiou Ho-shun (邱和順), who remains on death row, and whom Hsu said was wrongfully convicted of murder as he had been.
Hsu, who was convicted of the 1995 kidnap and murder of businessman Huang Chun-shu (黃春樹), was imprisoned for 16 years, spending most of the time on death row, before he was released in 2012.
It took another four years to clear his name, as it was not until October 2016 that the Supreme Court ruled that he was not guilty, rejecting prosecutors’ appeals.
Hsu’s was one of the nation’s highest-profile human rights cases at the time.
Chiou was sentenced to death for the 1987 kidnap and slaying of nine-year-old Lu Cheng (陸正).
The Supreme Court in July 2011 reaffirmed his death sentence.
His case is controversial because of the lack of forensic evidence, and allegations that his confession was obtained under torture.
“I do not have big dreams. I only hope that there will not be another Hsu Tzu-chiang,” Hsu said, expressing the hope that the federation would help Chiou as it helped him.
The congress features a two-day forum, which began yesterday, followed by internal meetings on the organization’s governance and a board election, the federation said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS