The Washington-based Human Rights Action Center (HRAC) is appealing to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to grant former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) an “independent and unbiased medical evaluation without delay.”
HRAC director Jack Healey issued a statement on Saturday saying: “Don’t play politics with a human life.”
“Provide complete access to independent medical evaluation and care for Chen Shui-bian now,” he wrote.
“There is a cure for [the] human rights malaise in Taiwan and this is the first step,” Healey added.
Two members of the Center — Hans Wahl and Harreld Dinkins — visited Chen at Taoyuan General Hospital on Sept. 17 to assess his condition.
Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption, had been admitted to the hospital after having difficulty urinating.
Healey said that Wahl and Dinkins thought the conditions under which the former president is being held were “grim.”
He said their report on Chen included a “disturbingly long list” of health concerns and that the recent discovery of more than 10 small infarctions in his brain indicated that his medical condition was “grave and worsening.”
Healey said the infarctions may explain the sudden stuttering and halting speech that Chen began exhibiting a few months ago.
“Without access to independently supervised medical care, Chen’s condition has been worsening,” Healey said.
The results of all medical tests so far conducted on Chen should be made available to the former president’s family so that they can decide “where and how to share them.”
“The only conclusion that I can draw is that the current government of Taiwan is attempting to levy a political punishment on Chen that includes a high and increasing likelihood of death,” Healey said.
Wahl and Dinkins had concluded, Healey said, that failure to provide better treatment for Chen could result in his developing a permanent disability.
“What a shameful stain this is becoming on Taiwan,” Healey said.
He added that decades of achievement in human rights protection were now being “overshadowed” by the Ma administration’s failure to act in the Chen case.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Trips for more than 100,000 international and domestic air travelers could be disrupted as China launches a military exercise around Taiwan today, Taiwan’s Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said yesterday. The exercise could affect nearly 900 flights scheduled to enter the Taipei Flight Information Region (FIR) during the exercise window, it added. A notice issued by the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration showed there would be seven temporary zones around the Taiwan Strait which would be used for live-fire exercises, lasting from 8am to 6pm today. All aircraft are prohibited from entering during exercise, it says. Taipei FIR has 14 international air routes and
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS