Taiwan should continue to protect its freedom of expression while commemorating late Nobel Peace Prize-winning Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) with a memorial day to support democracy and human rights, Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi said yesterday.
Democracy is thriving in Taiwan, with a high level of freedom of speech and human rights protection, but China has “killed” one of its most respected dissidents, Ebadi said during a meeting with lawmakers and human rights advocates in the legislature yesterday.
“In my opinion, China is a killer, a murderer” for ignoring the medical needs of cancer-stricken Liu, which led to his death on Thursday, Ebadi said.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
There are many political prisoners in Iran and other non-democratic nations who suffer the same fate, Ebadi said, calling on Taiwan to remember Liu’s death with a memorial day and commemorative ceremonies to honor his struggle against authoritarianism.
Ebadi said that in an earlier meeting yesterday with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), she also asked Tsai to commemorate Liu’s death to remember his fight for democracy.
Ebadi said she saw people protesting on the streets of Taipei in support of China, which suggests that Taiwan has a high degree of freedom of expression.
“People are free to say what they want to and stage protests as they want. That is why I believe the freedom of speech is the first step in democracy. Do not allow this to be harmed,” she said.
Saying that Iranian laws tolerate discrimination against women, Ebadi praised Taiwan’s development in women’s rights.
“Thirty-eight percent of the legislators are women in Taiwan. It is very good and I wish it could go up to 50 percent,” she said.
Members of the international press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) were also present at the meeting.
RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said the group decided to set up its first Asia office in Taiwan as the nation has the highest level of press freedom in the region and a boisterous media landscape.
There are indications that media freedom in the US, Europe and Asia is worsening, but Taiwan has set a good example of protecting press freedom, Deloire said.
He emphasized the importance of media freedom especially as Beijing continues to suppress the media, which would have a negative affect on regional development, Deloire said.
The freedom of the press in Taiwan has to be augmented by the decriminalization of defamation and increased resistance against media manipulation, he said.
Defamation is punishable by up to two years in prison, which Deloire said could be used to muzzle the media.
“There should be [civil] punishment for defamation, but it is not legitimate that people can go to jail for this,” he said.
The RSF’s Taipei branch would begin operations by the end of this year and promote and defend media independence, he said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater