Dozens of Tibetans and followers of a Tibetan monk staged a demonstration outside the National Immigration Agency (NIA) yesterday, protesting the nine-month detention of the lama, who was accused by the agency of entering the country using forged passports 39 times.
“Come out to explain this, [NIA Director-General] Hsieh Li-kung (謝立功)! Aren’t foreigners also humans?” they said.
Accompanied by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Kaohsiung City Councilor Chen Li-na (陳麗娜) and an attorney, dozens of Tibetans and followers of Dakmar Tulku wearing vests imprinted with large characters for “human rights” on the back shouted furiously as they protested outside the agency’s headquarters in Taipei amid pouring rain.
“[Dakmar] has been detained for more than nine months, his health is deteriorating, he is suffering in the detention center,” Chen told NIA officials and reporters. “Yet, he has not been declared guilty by the [Shilin District] court — how is this detention justified?”
Chen said that freedom of movement is protected by the Constitution and no one — neither foreigners nor Taiwanese — should be detained for such a long time just because they are “suspected” of possessing forged passports.
The protesters also performed a skit in which a man dressed in a traditional Tibetan outfit was taken by force and thrown into a dog cage by two others who were wearing NIA vests.
“How could a democracy that upholds human rights values do this? Of course he should be punished if he had done something wrong, but why should he be locked up if he had not done anything wrong?” Dolma Tso, president of the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association Taiwan, said before breaking into tears and kneeling down in front of agency officials and police officers.
Chen said Dakmar’s case is not an isolated one: “There have been other cases in which foreigners were detained for more than 300 days, but later proven not guilty.”
Receiving the petition from the Tibetans, NIA Deputy Director-General Chang Chi (張琪) insisted that the way the case had been handled was completely legal and justified.
“This man [Dakmar] came into the country illegally,” Chang said. “He originally had a Nepali passport, which was suspected to be a forged one and was banned from entering the country. Yet, he came into Taiwan again with a Costa Rican passport.”
NIA officer Lu Ta-wen (魯大文) said Dakmar was expelled from the country in 2006 when he was suspected of entering the country with a forged Nepali passport.
However, since 2006, Dakmar has entered the country as many as 39 times with other passports — so far, the NIA has found that he has at least two Nepali passports and one Costa Rican passport, Lu said.
Dakmar came into the country again with a passport issued by Costa Rica. However, when he applied to sail out from a harbor in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Tamsui District (淡水) in April last year, he applied with the same Nepali passport he used in 2006, Lu said.
“That’s how we found out about the whole case and we immediately turned it over to the judiciary and he was prosecuted,” Lu said. “He is detained now because he is without proper travel documents and will be deported if the [Shilin District] court declares him guilty on Jan. 26.”
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