Worried that detained human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) might have been sentenced in secret, civic groups and legislators yesterday urged the government to take immediate action to protect Lee’s right to appeal.
Yesterday marked the 197th day since Lee went missing after a trip to China in March. Beijing later said he was being detained on charges of subversion of state power.
After a video was released of Lee confessing his crimes in court on Sept. 11, his situation has again become unknown, the groups said.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
The video showed that Lee was prosecuted on Aug. 8, and according to China’s Criminal Law, the court must reach a verdict within two month after accepting a case, Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) told a news conference yesterday.
Accounting for China’s national holidays, the deadline should be on Monday, he said.
As several human rights advocates have been sentenced in China without a public announcement, the groups are worried that his case would be handled the same way and Lee will lose his right to appeal, Judicial Reform Foundation executive secretary Hsiao I-min (蕭逸民) said.
“We urge the government to clarify whether there is already a ruling in Lee’s case, and if the court has already sentenced him, to determine if he will have the right to appeal,” he said.
“If the case is not yet closed, the government should ask when the court will reach a verdict and whether Lee’s family and concerned groups can attend the court session,” he added.
The Beijing-appointed defense lawyer in the video gave up his right to defend Lee based on “jurisdiction” and “exclusion of illegally obtained evidence,” Hsiao said, adding that the prosecutor presented 70 confession documents as evidence of Lee’s guilt.
Five of the six accounts on which Lee is being prosecuted took place in Taiwan, over which China’s courts do not have jurisdiction, so if Lee is sentenced for his actions in Taiwan and has no right to appeal, the case would affect the rights of all Taiwanese, Hsiao said.
Beijing is using Lee’s case to intimidate Taiwanese, sending a message that “even if you use the Internet in Taiwan to spread the message of democracy and freedom, you might be sentenced to prison when you come to China,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) said.
“The government needs to clearly express its view on this case,” New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) added.
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
‘IMMORAL, INSINCERE’: Huang Kun-huei said that Ma was ‘distorting history’ in claiming that Lee Teng-hui laid the foundation for the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ Former Presidential Office secretary-general Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) on Saturday rejected former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had been a proponent of Beijing’s “one China” principle. Lee, who served as president from 1988 to 2000, died in Taipei on Thursday last week. After visiting the Taipei Guest House on Saturday to pay his respects to Lee, Ma posted on Facebook that “28 years ago on this day” Lee hosted a session of the now-defunct National Unification Council, during which he passed a resolution on the “one China” principle. That resolution became the basis of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s
NEW ERA: Taiwan, which has controlled its virus outbreak, now faces the challenge of safely resuming economic exchanges with other nations, Chang Shan-chwen said People should not focus entirely on having zero new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan, but neglect overall control over the disease situation, Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said yesterday. Chang made the remark at a forum in Taipei discussing the steps Taiwan should take in the post-pandemic era, organized by the Chinese-language magazine Global Views Monthly. Chang, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), and Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention director C. Jason Wang (王智弘) each made a presentation, followed by a panel discussion with Chang, Wang and Buddhist Tzu
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
RSS