Accompanied by a group of activists, leprosy patients yesterday declared that they will file a lawsuit against the government for policies they say have deprived them of basic human rights by segregating them from the rest of the population.
"The forced segregation policy violates the Constitution. We will present an indictment against the government and demand its apology as well," said Chan Ming-chou (
Hansen's disease is another term for leprosy. Leprosy affects the nerves of its patients and can cause deformities and skin disorders, but it is not infectious once treated, and a cure was found in the 1940s.
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
The patients last year won a lawsuit seeking compensation from the Japanese government for being forcibly sent to and secluded in a sanitarium.
The sanitarium, Lo Sheng Sanatorium (
"While the Japanese government has admitted its inhumane treatment of Hansen's patients, our own government has been indifferent to the patients' demands," Chan said. "The forced segregation policy is tantamount to a violation of the Constitution, which was the argument on which the Japanese court based its verdict."
Meanwhile, the President of the Lepers' Self-Help Organization Lee Tien-pei (
"The Japanese government concluded that the disease was not highly contagious and ended its quarantine of Hansen's disease patients in 1996, effectively reversing a segregation policy that had stood for nearly 90 years," Lee said. "But patients are still defamed by our own government."
The patients and activists also called on legislators to pass a law similar to the Japanese government's "Law on Compensation for Hansen's Disease Patients" as soon as possible.
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