A coalition of human rights groups and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) yesterday called on Beijing to release the lawyers arrested in Beijing’s “709 crackdown” of 2015 as they marked its third anniversary.
While the crackdown is considered the largest ever on the legal profession in China, it was only the beginning of a series of clampdowns.
As of May 17 this year, more than 321 human rights lawyers and civil rights advocates, as well as members of their families, have been arrested, summoned for questioning, banned from leaving the country and placed under surveillance or house arrest, the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group said in a statement yesterday.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
As part of efforts to raise awareness of the issue, a coalition of human rights groups from around the world last year jointly declared July 9 as Chinese Human Rights Lawyers’ Day, and this year they are honoring Chinese human rights lawyers Wang Quanzhang (王全璋) and Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), Taipei Bar Association director Wang Lung-kuan (王龍寬) told a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
Wang Quanzhang, who disappeared in July 2015, was charged with state subversion, but no official indictment has been made so far, Wang Lung-kuan said.
Gao’s family members said he disappeared in July last year.
Before that, he was being closely monitored by the Chinese government and was banned from leaving his hometown in Shanxi Province after completing a three-year prison sentence for defending Falun Gong practitioners.
As a member of the international community and China’s neighbor, Taiwan can do more to help support Chinese human rights advocates, Wang Lung-kuan said.
“A draft refugee act is already under review at the Legislative Yuan and as far as we know neither the DPP nor the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is opposed to it. The bill should be passed as soon as possible,” he said.
Last month, Chinese dissident Huang Yan (黃燕), who has been granted refugee status by the UN, came to Taiwan seeking political asylum, which shows that Taiwan can provide much-needed help to Chinese political refugees, he added.
Taiwan can also better support Chinese political dissidents by protecting their freedom of speech, assembly and other rights while they are in the nation, Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) said.
A number of Taiwanese have allegedly been recruited by Chinese authorities to collect evidence against Chinese dissidents engaging in pro-democracy activities in Taiwan, she said.
“Evidence collected by Taiwanese led to the conviction of Chinese human rights lawyer Zhou Shifeng (周世鋒) and human rights advocate and pastor Hu Shigen (胡石根) on charges of state subversion,” Chiu said.
“They were sentenced to seven and seven-and-a-half years in prison respectively. However, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office decided not to press charges [against the Taiwanese] on grounds that they were not government employees and their actions were unrelated to national security,” she said.
Taiwan’s defining difference from China is being a democracy that values freedom and human rights, Yu said. “If we cannot stand up to fight for such values, how can we ask other nations to do the same for us?”
In a joint statement issued yesterday, Yu and more than 50 civic groups and political organizations from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands and the US — including the Judicial Reform Foundation, Japan’s Human Rights Now and the Netherlands’ Lawyers for Lawyers — urged Beijing to immediately release all human rights lawyers arrested during the crackdown.
Beijing should also reverse their guilty verdicts, return their license to practice law and end all forms of political repression against them, they said.
POLAM KOPITIAM CASE: Of the two people still in hospital, one has undergone a liver transplant and is improving, while the other is being evaluated for a liver transplant A fourth person has died from bongkrek acid poisoning linked to the Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said yesterday, as two other people remain seriously ill in hospital. The first death was reported on March 24. The man had been 39 years old and had eaten at the restaurant on March 22. As more cases of suspected food poisoning involving people who had eaten at the restaurant were reported by hospitals on March 26, the ministry and the Taipei Department of Health launched an investigation. The Food and
A fourth person has died in a food poisoning outbreak linked to the Xinyi (信義) branch of Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in Taipei, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said on Monday. It was the second fatality in three days, after another was announced on Saturday. The 40-year-old woman experienced multiple organ failure in the early hours on Monday, and the family decided not to undergo emergency resuscitation, Wang said. She initially showed signs of improvement after seeking medical treatment for nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, but her condition worsened due to an infection, he said. Two others who
MEDICAL: The bills would also upgrade the status of the Ethical Guidelines Governing the Research of Human Embryos and Embryonic Stem Cell Research to law The Executive Yuan yesterday approved two bills to govern regenerative medicine that aim to boost development of the field. Taiwan would reach an important milestone in regenerative medicine development with passage of the regenerative medicine act and the regenerative medicine preparations ordinance, which would allow studies to proceed and treatments to be developed, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) told reporters at a news conference after a Cabinet meeting. Regenerative treatments have been used for several conditions, including cancer — by regenerating blood cells — and restoring joint function in soft tissue, Wang said. The draft legislation requires regenerative treatments
Taiwanese should be mindful when visiting China, as Beijing in July is likely to tighten the implementation of policies on national security following the introduction of two regulations, a researcher said on Saturday. China on Friday unveiled the regulations governing the law enforcement and judicial activities of national security agencies. They would help crack down on “illegal” and “criminal” activities that Beijing considers to be endangering national security, according to reports by China’s state media. The definition of what constitutes a national security threat in China is vague, Taiwan Thinktank researcher Wu Se-chih (吳瑟致) said. The two procedural regulations are to provide Chinese