Several human rights groups yesterday protested outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) in Taipei, accusing it of emphasizing sovereignty over human rights in its handling of the FBI’s arrest of Jacqueline Liu (劉姍姍), director-general of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Kansas City, Missouri.
Holding a yellow banner that read: “Only when migrant worker rights are protected can there be dignity for the country,” dozens of people representing several human rights advocacy groups, including the Taiwan International Workers’ Association (TIWA), Amnesty International Taiwan, the Taiwan Committee for Philippine Concerns and the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office, took part in the protest.
“The government talks about preventing human trafficking and implementing the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR] as well as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights [ICESCR],” TIWA chairwoman Wu Ching-ju (吳靜如) said during the protest. “However, the way that the ministry has handled the arrest of Liu shows that it’s all lies — the government cares more about the sovereignty issue than the human rights issue despite its lofty talk.”
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Wu urged the ministry to launch a thorough probe into all of Taiwan’s diplomatic posts to determine if human rights are being compromised.
Amnesty International Taiwan deputy secretary-general Yang Tsung-li (楊宗澧) said the ministry’s handling of the incident “only places the focus on whether Liu enjoys diplomatic immunity, but not on the human rights issue of whether she was involved in foreign worker abuse.”
Yang said that if Liu had made her Filipino housekeeper work overtime without proper pay, restricted her movement and took away her passport, Liu was clearly in violation of clauses in the UN covenants on freedom of movement, labor rights and prohibition of slavery.
“If, as the ministry claims, Liu [broke the law] while performing her duties, then according to the Act to Implement the ICCPR and the ICESCR (公民與政治權利國際公約及經濟社會文化權利國際公約施行法), the government is obliged to make sure that all government employees and government actions are in accordance with the two international human rights covenants,” Yang said.
“Hence, the Control Yuan should also launch a probe into Liu’s conduct as a government official,” Yang said.
Sung Hung-kuang (宋竑廣), one of the demonstrators, said he could not understand why the ministry had not seemed to care about “defending Taiwan’s sovereignty when the Taiwanese captain of a fishing boat held by Somalian pirates was killed during an exchange of fire between the US Navy and pirates, but is so eager to do so when an official is arrested over charges of labor abuse.”
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