Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday led hundreds of supporters to visit former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in Taichung Prison and announced that she would launch a nationwide hunger strike if Chen is not allowed to return home by Christmas Eve.
More than six mayors, 50 city councilors, county commissioners and representatives from various groups — including the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the One Side, One Country Alliance and the Taiwan Republic Campaign — responded to Lu’s call for a visit to the prison as a gesture of support for the former president.
Lu said she chose yesterday, Dec. 10, to make the visit for three reasons: It was Human Rights Day, it was the anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident and the anniversary of day Chen announced that he would run for president with Lu in 1999.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
“A-bian [referring to Chen] was moved to tears when he saw [all the people who visited him]. We hope that he could be out by Christmas Eve and that the evil karma could be brought to an end,” Lu said.
A group of Presbyterian Church ministers urged President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration to release Chen, saying that justice and sympathy are the foundation of a country’s stability and solidarity.
They said Chen’s six-year incarceration is “unjust” when many within Ma administration’s coterie remain at large.
Photo: Liao Yao-tung, Taipei Times
Chen’s son, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), confirmed that another application for medical parole had been sent to the Ministry of Justice yesterday, and that the family is hopeful of succeeding this time.
The application was submitted by Chen’s lawyer, Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍), in Taipei.
“It is extremely inhumane to put a country’s [former] president behind bars until he got afflicted with brain problems,” Cheng told reporters when he submitted the application.
“The Taipei District Court’s forensic report states that [Chen’s] life is considered precarious now. I don’t know whether it is better to have a former president die in prison or allow him to receive medical treatment at home. I consider Taiwan’s entire legal system very inhumane and uncivilized,” he added.
Asked whether he felt more optimistic about the current petition, since it was an approach recommended by the ministry, Cheng said being optimistic was not the point, “as we just followed what they asked us to do.”
“We do not have much of a choice anyway. It is he who holds the power. President Ma said he would not interfere, but we all know that he is the one who has the final say in this,” the lawyer said, calling on Ma “to stop meddling in the case.”
Long-term democracy activist Shih Ming-te (施明德) agreed that the nation’s system for medical parole is inhumane.
According to existing practice, “a medical parole can be granted if a prisoner is nearing the end of their life,” Shih said.
Shih asked the ministry to make public the standard and apply it to every prisoner.
“It would be a privilege if the right applies to one person only; it would be human rights if it applies to everybody,” he said.
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
A bipartisan group of US senators has introduced a bill to enhance cooperation with Taiwan on drone development and to reduce reliance on supply chains linked to China. The proposed Blue Skies for Taiwan Act of 2026 was introduced by Republican US senators Ted Cruz and John Curtis, and Democratic US senators Jeff Merkley and Andy Kim. The legislation seeks to ease constraints on Taiwan-US cooperation in uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), including dependence on China-sourced components, limited access to capital and regulatory barriers under US export controls, a news release issued by Cruz on Wednesday said. The bill would establish a "Blue UAS
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
RSS