Taiwanese actor Kai Ko (柯震東) has apologized to the public twice since being arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana in China. He has also agreed to pay for drug rehabilitation in Taiwan, and the criminal case against him here is basically over. However, regardless of whether Ko actually smoked marijuana or not, this case is a prime example of how both Taiwan and China infringe on human rights.
The human rights infringements that Ko may have endured while in China have already been covered in depth by the media. When he was detained in Beijing, his case did not go to court or a neutral third party, nor was he given the right to review the legality of how the evidence against him was gathered or the right to defend himself. This runs counter to basic human rights standards and the legal consensus that Taiwanese society has worked so hard to achieve over the past two decades as stipulated in Constitutional Interpretation No. 677, which states that any measure that limits personal freedom, regardless of whether one is charged with a crime, can be imposed only after necessary judicial procedures and other due process of law have been followed. The handling of Ko’s case fails to live up to not only human rights standards in Taiwan, but also provisions in the UN’s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Ko’s case also relates to potential human rights abuses to which people rarely pay attention. When it comes to using drugs like marijuana, China has adopted a system of administrative detention, which from a human rights perspective is more advanced than Taiwan’s approach. In other words, if it were not for Taiwan’s comparatively backward policies on drug offenses, Ko would not have had to face an investigation into his alleged drug offense in China after returning to Taiwan. Furthermore, if he had smoked marijuana in a country other than China, be it the Netherlands, where use of marijuana has long been tolerated, or another country where marijuana is still viewed as a drug, he would not have been subject to criminal sanctions after returning to Taiwan because smoking marijuana overseas is not considered a felony under Taiwanese law.
However, Ko was investigated after returning to the country because Taiwan’s judicial bodies view crimes committed in China as “domestic” cases. Having surrealist judicial policies that view crimes committed in China as “domestic” not only runs counter to the principle that Republic of China (ROC) nationals and foreigners should have the right to a fair trial for crimes committed domestically, it also fails to guarantee that the state’s investigation into crimes committed domestically follows due process and the demands for protecting human rights as enshrined in the ROC Constitution. If it is impossible for Taiwanese to demand that the government take responsibility for actions that violate guarantees of equality and human rights, while allowing the government to waste resources on investigations into misdemeanors, then we really have to start paying much more attention to human rights infringements.
It would be good if the Ko case could make us start thinking about whether Taiwan and China should stick to surreal territorial claims in cross-strait dealings while increasing offenses against human rights or whether the two sides should focus on protecting human rights and paving the way toward such protection in cross-strait exchanges. Rather than all the gossip the Ko case has generated, this would be the best thing this case could do for Taiwan.
Chiou Wen-tsong is director of Taiwan Democracy Watch and a member of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.
Translated by Drew Cameron
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