Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Chairwoman Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said yesterday that the council expected the fourth round of cross-strait negotiations next week to serve as a platform for Taiwan to demonstrate its democracy and openness.
Lai reiterated the administration’s resolve to protect freedom of speech, but stressed that the government will also make an effort to protect the safety of “the guests” and ensure that the meetings proceed smoothly.
“We expect people to respect the value of democracy and freedom while expressing different opinions and demonstrating democracy to the world,” she said.
PHOTO: CNA
No matter what happens, Lai said the meeting and other arrangements would go ahead as planned and she believed the Ministry of the Interior and security agencies would use their experience and professionalism in the proper manner.
The meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) will be held on Tuesday.
Lai will meet Chen on the same day, but the council declined to comment on who else Chen would meet or when he would meet them.
Lai said more than 500 reporters had applied to cover the event, and called on the public to express their opinions while respecting others.
Meanwhile, human rights activists yesterday urged people who plan to protest against Chen’s visit to closely monitor the policing of demonstrations and videotape it if possible.
“Last year [when Chen visited Taipei], the police brutally cracked down on demonstrators without respect for their basic freedom of expression,” Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) secretary-general Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
“Many of the victims of police brutality later filed lawsuits against the police, but investigations on the cases aren’t very smooth, since most of the complainants lacked direct evidence to support their accusations,” she added. “So we’re asking protestors to videotape any incidents to be used as evidence in court if police brutality occurs again.”
Several of the complainants showed up at the press conference to recount their stories and report on the progress of their cases.
Around a dozen people who took part in last year’s protests filed lawsuits against the police claiming brutality, accusing officers of beating them after their arrest, taking away Tibetan and Republic of China flags and arresting them for no apparent reason. A music store accused officers of forcing it to close its doors as protesters danced to the music it was playing.
However, the legal process for the cases has been slow because of a lack of concrete evidence, they said.
As well as asking people to videotape police action with their cameras or cell phones, Tsai said that several human rights groups including the TAHR, the Judicial Reform Foundation, the Humanistic Education Foundation and Amnesty International Taiwan will send volunteers to the protest scenes to monitor how the police handle demonstrations.
“This is also a time to see if President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] is serious about applying international human rights standards since a law that turned two international human rights covenants into legally binding documents just took effect earlier this month,” Tsai said. “We want to see if the police handle things differently to last year.”
She was referring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights ratified by the Legislative Yuan earlier this year.
“We will release a report on our observations afterwards,” Tsai said.
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