Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) talked about his possible death in prison and criticized regulations on medical parole in his weekly column published yesterday.
“It would not be a surprise if the headline ‘Chen Shui-bian dies in prison’ appears on every media outlet someday,” Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, wrote in his weekly column, titled “Death of a president,” for the Chinese-language weekly Next Magazine.
Chen said his deteriorating health had been confirmed by several physicians, who had visited him in prison and said Chen’s life “could be in danger anytime.”
While the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has called for Chen’s release for medical treatment, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) did not address the issue until Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) made the same appeal last week.
Ma rejected Hau’s suggestion in an interview with the Central News Agency on Monday, saying that a medical parole would “actually mean [Chen] being released from prison.”
Chen wrote that an executive order from the Ministry of Justice “basically allows a release for medical treatment only for dying inmates, including those who are terminally ill cancer patients.”
“A release under that condition would not be for seeking medical treatment, but for waiting to die,” he wrote.
“[My] dying in prison would be a gift from God and my destiny,” he added.
The DPP has in the past few days accused Ma of “distorting the law.”
“The law clearly stipulates that a prisoner has to return to prison after receiving appropriate medical care and that the time spent out of the prison counts against his prison term,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said yesterday in Yilan County’s Jiaosi Township (礁溪).
“It is strange that Ma and I went to the same school, read the same law textbooks and studied under the same professors and yet he comes up with these strange opinions,” said Su, who, like Ma, graduated from National Taiwan University with a law degree.
Also speaking in Yilan, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said the Ministry of Justice “should act like a professional instead of catering to what the president says and politicizing a legal issue.”
Hsieh said he supported the release of Chen because it would “fit the general atmosphere in society.”
“Any legal expert should know that the interpretation and application of law should meet society’s expectation — and what society expects is that legal practitioners should defend social values and consciousness,” former DPP chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a message on her Facebook page yesterday.
“The interpretation and manipulation of law as a tool for personal benefit and political agenda would be a bad example,” she wrote.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by
RSS