The Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) called on the government to speed up its handling of the asylum applications of Chinese dissidents Chen Rong-li (
"The government says that it has difficulties dealing with Chen and Yen's cases because they came here illegally. But how many dissidents are able to escape through legal means? Yan and Chen came here because they had faith in Taiwan's democracy. As of today, they are indefinitely stuck at a refugee center in Ilan," TAHR representative Ko Yu-chen (顧玉珍) said.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chen and Yan fled to Taiwan to escape persecution in China for participating in pro-democracy activities, the group said.
Chen, 35, fled on a fishing boat to Kinmen off China's southeast coast on Jan. 31 in a bid to seek asylum in the US. Kinmen police transferred him to the Mainlander Detention Center in Ilan on March 12.
Yan, 40, joined Chen at the center three months later after going through a similar process.
The group said that finding support for Yan and Chen was made more difficult due to the absence of a political asylum law and comprehensive immigration office.
Political asylum cases are handled under section three, Article 19, of the Regulations Governing Approval for the Residency or Permanent Residency of Mainland-area Peoples in Taiwan through Family (
"The government claims it has had difficulties because there is no clear law regarding political asylum pleas. An asylum law would regulate handling procedure, but in the absence of such a law we have no right to restrict the quest for freedom of people facing persecution," said Mab Huang, head of Soochow University's Chang-fo Chuan Center for the Study of Human Rights.
In response to the association's calls, Yang Chia-chun (楊家駿),director of the Department of Legal Affairs at the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), said that the council was doing its best and that the two cases were progressing in accordance with procedure.
Applications for political asylum go through three stages, Yang said.
First, the government must confirm the identity of the dissident involved. Second, the political activities and persecution of the dissident must be verified. Third, having completed the background check, the government must decide where to place the refugee, either by helping him or her seek asylum in a third country or offering asylum in Taiwan.
"Chen's case is already at the third stage and we are negotiating with foreign countries on his behalf.
"Yan's plea has cleared stages one and two and is currently entering stage three," Yang said.
It is unclear, how long negotiations will last, he said.
Yang refused to reveal which countries are involved in negotiations over Chen's case out of concern for their diplomatic ties with China.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater