Founder of the Human Rights Action Center John Healey has written an open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) appealing for better prison conditions and healthcare for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
“In the United States we have prosecuted and convicted politicians from the most local to national offices, but we do not systematically deny those people access to healthcare due to political differences,” Healey said in a letter carried by the Huffington Post.
Healey was executive director of Amnesty International USA for 12 years.
His Washington-based Human Rights Action Center works to promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“The political differences between your party’s positions and those of Mr Chen’s party should not be used as a punitive weapon,” Healey said.
“In a functioning democracy, such behavior is an affront to the very principles that allow people to give mandates to governments,” he said.
There is increasing concern in the US — including in the US Congress — about the conditions under which Chen is serving his long sentence for corruption.
“If [former] president Chen’s health deteriorates much further, the choice may become more stark between a pardon or his death while in custody,” Healey wrote.
“Both of those outcomes would present stronger challenges to the Taiwanese legal system or the legitimacy of inter-party political transitions there,” he wrote.
Healey said that Chen spends 23 hours a day in a cell that is only about 2m by 3m and which he shares with another prisoner.
He asked if it would “really harm the interests of Taiwan” if Chen was provided with good healthcare and a larger cell.
“We would hope that Taiwan would have a strong commitment to the human rights that its people have valued and tried to protect, and that all of its citizens would be treated with the basics of medical access and livable space allowed,” Healey said in the letter.
He ended: “Denying such fundamental respect to nonviolent convicts is particularly galling. The people of Taiwan deserve a greater legacy and an adherence to the principles of decency. All humankind does.”
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) yesterday said it had deployed patrol vessels to expel a China Coast Guard ship and a Chinese fishing boat near Pratas Island (Dongsha Island, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. The China Coast Guard vessel was 28 nautical miles (52km) northeast of Pratas at 6:15am on Thursday, approaching the island’s restricted waters, which extend 24 nautical miles from its shoreline, the CGA’s Dongsha-Nansha Branch said in a statement. The Tainan, a 2,000-tonne cutter, was deployed by the CGA to shadow the Chinese ship, which left the area at 2:39pm on Friday, the statement said. At 6:31pm on Friday,
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy’s (PLAN) third aircraft carrier, the Fujian, would pose a steep challenge to Taiwan’s ability to defend itself against a full-scale invasion, a defense expert said yesterday. Institute of National Defense and Security Research analyst Chieh Chung (揭仲) made the comment hours after the PLAN confirmed the carrier recently passed through the Taiwan Strait to conduct “scientific research tests and training missions” in the South China Sea. China has two carriers in operation — the Liaoning and the Shandong — with the Fujian undergoing sea trials. Although the PLAN needs time to train the Fujian’s air wing and
STRIKE: Some travel agencies in Taiwan said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group tours to the country were proceeding as planned A planned strike by airport personnel in South Korea has not affected group tours to the country from Taiwan, travel agencies said yesterday. They added that they were closely monitoring the situation. Personnel at 15 airports, including Seoul’s Incheon and Gimpo airports, are to go on strike. They announced at a news conference on Tuesday that the strike would begin on Friday next week and continue until the Mid-Autumn Festival next month. Some travel agencies in Taiwan, including Cola Tour, Lion Travel, SET Tour and ezTravel, said that they were aware of the situation in South Korea, and that group
Taiwanese celebrities Hank Chen (陳漢典) and Lulu Huang (黃路梓茵) announced yesterday that they are planning to marry. Huang announced and posted photos of their engagement to her social media pages yesterday morning, joking that the pair were not just doing marketing for a new show, but “really getting married.” “We’ve decided to spend all of our future happy and hilarious moments together,” she wrote. The announcement, which was later confirmed by the talent agency they share, appeared to come as a surprise even to those around them, with veteran TV host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) saying he was “totally taken aback” by the news. Huang,
RSS