In an e-mail response to an inquiry from the Taipei Times yesterday regarding the removal late last year of Taiwan from its list of countries, New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) denied the move was made in response to any pressure.
“The decision to remove Taiwan from the site had nothing whatsoever to do with the Chinese or Taiwanese authorities, nor with any donors,” HRW communications director Emma Daly wrote. “When we relaunched our Web site late last year, we decided to cut back the list of countries to remove those where we’ve done little or no work over the past few years.”
“The only information we had posted on the Taiwan page on the old site were links to two global reports from 2000 and 2001 — one on land mines and one on the use of child soldiers — and a 1989 assessment of human rights in Taiwan. So we decided to cut it from the list of countries we work on,” Daly wrote.
Asked why, in light of signs of a democratic backsliding in Taiwan since the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to power in May, HRW had not issued any reports or comments — as other rights watchdogs have done — Daly said: “Human Rights Watch does not work on Taiwan because the abuses there aren’t nearly as acute as they are in many other Asian countries, such as Afghanistan, Burma [Myanmar] or China.”
“Human Rights Watch has finite resources and there are many Asian countries where the human rights situation is appalling. That’s why we don’t carry out rights investigations in, say, Japan or South Korea,” Daly wrote.
HRW nevertheless maintains Web pages for both those countries, Daly said, because they are significant advocacy targets, adding that if they decide to work on Taiwan again, HRW would “certainly restore the link on the new site.”
The organization had no comment on recent developments in Taiwan.
In its 2007 financial statement, the non-profit said it obtains financial support from the public, mainly from individuals and foundations, as well as businesses. It does not seek or accept support from governments or government-funded agencies. Its statement showed US$37.6 million in public contributions and grants for 2007, of which US$2.88 million went toward the Asia program.
TOO TIRED: Investigators found that the pilot’s lack of alertness could be attributed to a lack of sleep the previous night, when he had slept with his child It was a copilot’s inappropriate operation of the aircraft and the pilot’s insufficient alertness that led to a hard landing of a China Airlines cargo flight on Dec. 13, 2018, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. Flight CI6844, a Boeing 747-409 which departed from Hong Kong International Airport, landed on the pre-threshold area of runway L5 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, about 21m before the head of the runway, an investigation report said. The hard landing damaged three runway lights, but none of the personnel on board sustained any injuries, the report said. When approaching the runway, the copilot failed to maintain
DISTRUST WARRANTED? The WHO is under China’s control and has become a useless organization, while data from China cannot be trusted, a Control Yuan member said China’s demand that the novel coronavirus that emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, not be referred to with names like the “Wuhan pneumonia” betrays its lack of confidence in itself, Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told lawmakers yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Tsai Yi-yu (蔡易餘) asked Su, during a interpellation at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, for his view on China’s attempts to redeem its national image in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. These included China’s efforts to “bleach” its image, including having WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus publicly praise its handling of the COVID-19 outbreak, and thanking it for buying time
REPEAT OFFENDER: The man went outside for exercise on Wednesday and then left his home on Saturday with his girlfriend, officials said A New Taipei City man has been fined NT$400,000 (US$13,221) and ordered into government quarantine after breaking home quarantine for a second time on Saturday. The 25-year-old man, surnamed Chen (陳) returned to Taiwan on Sunday last week and was ordered to home quarantine until Sunday. He was seen leaving his home on a scooter with his girlfriend on Saturday, three days after he was fined NT$200,000 for going outside to exercise, police said. Chen has now been placed in a quarantine center arranged by the district office and health center of the district where he lives, police said. Police warned the public
Taipei residents who stay at hotels in the city during their 14-day mandatory quarantine period are eligible to apply for the city’s NT$7,000 subsidy, with online applications to be launched next week. Taipei Deputy Mayor Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) on Monday said Taipei residents who have COVID-19 Health Declaration and Home Quarantine Notice dated after March 19 and a quarantine hotel receipt for the dates covered by the quarantine period, would be eligible for the subsidy. The Taipei City Government on Sunday told the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) that so many city residents are under home quarantine that about 90 percent of
RSS