Former Chinese State Administration for Religious Affairs director Ye Xiaowen (葉小文) applied to enter Taiwan on the pretext of offering his condolences over the death of Buddhist master Hsing Yun (星雲法師). Ye’s application was rejected by the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), a decision applauded by a group of lawyers representing the Falun Gong.
The government’s move to bar Ye from visiting Taiwan is “absolutely legitimate and reasonable,” as Ye has been involved in genocide and “crimes against humanity,” the group said in a statement.
Denying Ye entry is in accordance with the nation’s democratic policy of upholding human rights, the statement said.
The council’s decision prevented a situation that could have turned into an international legal and political incident.
On Jan. 19, 2005, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong released a list of Chinese Communist Party officials and its network of enforcers: Ye was one of them.
The organization said that the US’ Anti-Atrocity Alien Deportation Act states that the names of these criminals are to be submitted to the customs and immigration offices of all countries.
Under international law, the crimes against humanity and religious persecution committed by Ye fall under the principle of universal jurisdiction. In other words, all democratic countries and their national courts should exercise the authority to investigate and prosecute Ye’s “crimes against humanity.”
Although Taiwan did not cite the principle of universal jurisdiction to scrutinize Ye’s case, prosecutors can and should investigate crimes against humanity and religious persecution, as required by the Convention on the Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (殘害人群治罪條例).
People involved in genocide, defined in Article 2 of the convention as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” are to be sentenced to death, life imprisonment or more than seven years in prison. Ye’s “crimes against humanity” are considered a capital felony. Hence, should he enter Taiwan, he would be arrested and prosecuted.
It is fortunate that the MAC discovered Ye’s intention to visit Taiwan and barred him from doing so. The council prevented the nation from a major dilemma of tracking down criminals while dealing with international political problems.
Huang Di-ying is an attorney.
Translated by Liu Yi-hung
After more than a year of review, the National Security Bureau on Monday said it has completed a sweeping declassification of political archives from the Martial Law period, transferring the full collection to the National Archives Administration under the National Development Council. The move marks another significant step in Taiwan’s long journey toward transitional justice. The newly opened files span the architecture of authoritarian control: internal security and loyalty investigations, intelligence and counterintelligence operations, exit and entry controls, overseas surveillance of Taiwan independence activists, and case materials related to sedition and rebellion charges. For academics of Taiwan’s White Terror era —
On Feb. 7, the New York Times ran a column by Nicholas Kristof (“What if the valedictorians were America’s cool kids?”) that blindly and lavishly praised education in Taiwan and in Asia more broadly. We are used to this kind of Orientalist admiration for what is, at the end of the day, paradoxically very Anglo-centered. They could have praised Europeans for valuing education, too, but one rarely sees an American praising Europe, right? It immediately made me think of something I have observed. If Taiwanese education looks so wonderful through the eyes of the archetypal expat, gazing from an ivory tower, how
China has apparently emerged as one of the clearest and most predictable beneficiaries of US President Donald Trump’s “America First” and “Make America Great Again” approach. Many countries are scrambling to defend their interests and reputation regarding an increasingly unpredictable and self-seeking US. There is a growing consensus among foreign policy pundits that the world has already entered the beginning of the end of Pax Americana, the US-led international order. Consequently, a number of countries are reversing their foreign policy preferences. The result has been an accelerating turn toward China as an alternative economic partner, with Beijing hosting Western leaders, albeit
After 37 US lawmakers wrote to express concern over legislators’ stalling of critical budgets, Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) pledged to make the Executive Yuan’s proposed NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.7 billion) special defense budget a top priority for legislative review. On Tuesday, it was finally listed on the legislator’s plenary agenda for Friday next week. The special defense budget was proposed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration in November last year to enhance the nation’s defense capabilities against external threats from China. However, the legislature, dominated by the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), repeatedly blocked its review. The
RSS