Beginning tomorrow, former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) office will hold a series of rallies across the country in support of Chen, who has been detained incommunicado without charge since Nov. 12.
Chen is suspected of money laundering, accepting bribes, forgery and embezzling NT$15 million (US$450,000) during his presidency.
Chen has refused food since Nov. 13 in protest at what he calls “political persecution.” He has accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration of waging a “political vendetta” against him to curry favor with Beijing.
After agreeing to drink some liquid drawn from boiled rice on Wednesday, Chen yesterday ate 500cc of congee, said Lee Da-chu (李大竹), deputy head of the Taipei Detention Center in Tucheng (土城), Taipei County, where Chen is being held.
Former Examination Yuan president Yao Chia-wen (姚嘉文) said that an evening gathering organized by the office last Saturday in Taipei attracted about 20,000 people and the office was planning to hold three more rallies.
Tomorrow there will be a rally in Taichung, on Sunday in Tainan County and on the following Saturday a rally will be held in Kaohsiung, the office said. Another group of Chen supporters has announced it will hold a similar event on Sunday at Yungchun MRT station in Taipei.
Yao said they would invite Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweights to the events, including former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), but they were not certain whether they would attend any of the events.
Describing Chen’s incarceration as “political,” Yao said it was clear that it was an attempt to frustrate the pro-independence campaign.
“They put him in jail because he [Chen] advocates ‘one country on each side of the Strait,’ which is entirely different from the ‘ultimate unification with China’ promoted by the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] government,” Yao said.
Yao said that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should stand together with the Taiwanese people rather than with Beijing, because he was elected by the public.
“The ‘one country on each side of the Strait’ theory will not die because of Chen’s detention,” Yao said.
Yao said Chen’s case showed that it was not a fight between the ruling and opposition parties, but one between democratic and communist forces. The KMT and Special Investigation Panel (SIP) at the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office should stop their political persecution because Chen’s incarceration did not accomplish any political aims and many local and international rights groups have denounced it as a violation of Chen’s human rights, he said.
Chen’s former Presidential Office secretary-general Mark Chen (陳唐山) warned on the perils of a lack of social justice, saying without them society would plunge into turmoil.
Mark Chen said he had been blacklisted by the former KMT government, but had been glad to see some progress made on human rights and democracy over the past few years. However, things have deteriorated since Ma took office, he said, adding that the KMT administration should conduct some soul searching, especially since international human rights groups had expressed concerns over the former president’s detention.
Reverend Lyim Hong-tiong (林芳仲) said his Church had informed other churches around the world of the political persecution of the former president and that the case would be highlighted by other churches worldwide.
Lyim said the Church cared about the case because it was a violation of human rights and it must take care of the “abused.”
Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒), editor-in-chief of Contemporary Magazine, said the former president’s case was political, not judicial, and that it had been unnecessary to handcuff Chen Shui-bian.
The goal of the detention was to “totally destroy the A-bian [Chen Shui-bian’s nickname] path,” he said.
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