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.
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