Save a Bunun man
The Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada wishes to draw your attention to the case of Wang Guang-lu (王光祿), a Bunun Aborigine, who has been sentenced to three years and two months in prison by the Hualien branch of the High Court for hunting one serow and one muntjac with a home-made shotgun, for the purpose of making a meal for his aged mother.
We are dismayed at this unreasonable sentence and protest in the name of the basic principles of human rights, which are already enshrined in the laws of the Republic of China (ROC). We believe that you also must be disturbed by this discriminatory interpretation of laws affecting Aboriginal rights. It undermines your efforts to make human rights the foundation for the laws of the ROC.
The Taidong District Court denied Wang the protection of Article 19 of the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民族基本法第十 九條) because his shotgun was not “self-made” by Wang himself, and because it was not related to some ritual, so not an expression of ‘traditional indigenous culture.”
We find these reasons to be discriminatory and forced. It is reasonable to ban hunting for recreational and commercial purposes, and to ban the commercial or illegal sale of weapons. However, “traditional Bunun culture” certainly encompasses occasional hunting for a family meal and should not prevent acts of filial piety, which are as much a part of Bunun culture as they are of Chinese culture.
The extremely narrow definition of “self-made” to mean “made exclusively by yourself” would mean that most of the shotguns used by Aborigines are illegal, since in most Aboriginal communities there are only a few people with the equipment and skill to make shotguns and they assist their neighbors by doing so. This was the case in the distant past and it continues today.
Moreover, the unreasonably long prison sentence violates statements by the Council of Indigenous Peoples, made on several occasions, that when Aborigines breach the Controlling Guns, Knives and Ammunition Act (槍砲彈藥刀械管制條例) they will be subject to “administrative punishment” only, not imprisonment.
In 2012, [the council] took the bold step of inviting an international group of independent experts to review Taiwan’s implementation of international human rights covenants. In the group’s concluding observations and recommendations on March 1, 2013, it said:
“Additional legislative recognition [should] be given to specific economic, social and cultural rights with a view to facilitating and ensuring their application by the judiciary; in-depth, intensive and applied training in relation to the two covenants [should] be provided for the judiciary” and it “strongly recommend[s] the effective enforcement of Taiwan’s Indigenous Peoples Basic Law and the revision of policies and administrative measures that contravene” it.
That lower courts make such an unreasonably narrow interpretation of the law and impose harsh punishment on a Bunun man for an act of filial piety suggests that these recommendations have not yet been put into action.
The association urges [the council] to show leadership in this, a human rights issue close to your own heart, and ensure that Wang’s case be given a full review. If it becomes necessary, we further urge you to exercise your prerogative of pardon to make an unequivocal demonstration that when laws are sometimes in conflict, you choose human rights as the final standard of law.
We would further urge you to push the Executive Yuan to quickly propose a law that gives priority to the human rights principles that already exist in laws such as the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act, so that these laws shall prevail when there is a conflict between them and other laws.
With sincere best wishes in our common goal of promoting human rights.
Michael Stainton
Taiwanese Human Rights Association of Canada president
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