A visiting US official responsible for religious freedom yesterday urged the Chinese government to release jailed Taiwanese democracy activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who is serving a five-year prison term in China on charges of subversion of state power.
US Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, who is visiting Taiwan for a regional religious freedom forum, the first of its kind, made the call during a news briefing in Taipei after a meeting with Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜).
Lee Ming-che has been detained in China since March 2017 and serving a five-year prison term since being convicted in November of that year of subversion of state power.
Since then, his wife has been visiting worldwide human rights watchdogs to rally support to jointly call on Beijing for his swift release.
During Tuesday’s briefing, which he attended with Lee Ching-yu, Brownback said that this is the second time in less than two months that he has met with her.
The previous meeting was in February, when Lee Ching-yu visited Washington.
Describing the case as being of high concern for the US government, he said a human rights advocate such as Lee Ming-che should not be incarcerated, but should be set free, especially as his health is deteriorating.
According to Lee Ching-yu, Lee Ming-che has lost about 30kg, must perform forced labor and is fed spoiled food in a prison in Hunan Province. She has not been able to meet with her husband since December last year, her last visit to the prison.
“This is not something that is happening to him alone, but to every prisoner in that prison,” she said.
She expressed gratitude to the US government for their concern about her husband’s incarceration, but warned that this kind of threat over human right advocates does not target only Taiwan, but the whole world.
The US official affirmed that his government believes that Lee Ming-che should be set free, and called on the Chinese government to release him.
Asked about what concrete plan the US has to persuade China to release Lee, Brownback said that the US continues to look at “additional concrete steps if action is not taken [on China’s part].”
He said that the standard operating procedure on the US side concerning such cases is that Washington would first try to solve the issue “quietly and privately.”
“If that does not work, we will raise public pressure on the case. If that does not work, then we take the next step, which is often to look at what specific action we can take,” he said.
He used as an example the case of US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was detained in Turkey for nearly two years over alleged links to political groups.
The US government later imposed sanctions on Turkey over the case until the latter ultimately released the pastor in October last year.
In the case of Lee Ming-che, Brownback said that the US is still at the stage of raising awareness over his imprisonment to put pressure on China.
He admitted that he is “deeply concerned” about Lee’s rapidly deteriorating condition.
This is the first time that Brownback has visited Taiwan. The visit is scheduled to conclude today.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Brownback was a strong supporter of Taiwan long before he assumed office as a US ambassador-at-large on Feb. 1 last year.
He was a member of the US Senate Taiwan Caucus and hosted a Taiwanese agricultural mission when he served as governor of Kansas, the ministry said.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
UNREASONABLE SURVEILLANCE: A camera targeted on an road by a neighbor captured a man’s habitual unsignaled turn into home, netting him dozens of tickets The Taichung High Administrative Court has canceled all 45 tickets given to a man for failing to use a turn signal while driving, as it considered long-term surveillance of his privacy more problematic than the traffic violations. The man, surnamed Tseng (曾), lives in Changhua County and was reported 45 times within a month for failing to signal while driving when he turned into the alley where his residence is. The reports were filed by his neighbor, who set up security cameras that constantly monitored not only the alley but also the door and yard of Tseng’s house. The surveillance occurred from July
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
A Japan Self-Defense Forces vessel entered the Taiwan Strait yesterday, Japanese media reported. After passing through the Taiwan Strait, the Ikazuchi was to proceed to the South China Sea to take part in a joint military exercise with the US and the Philippines, the reports said. Japan Self-Defense Force vessels were first reported to have passed through the strait in September, 2024, with two further transits taking place in February and June last year, the Asahi Shimbun reported. Yesterday’s transit also marked the first time since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi took office that a Japanese warship has been sent through the Taiwan
RSS