Seeking redress for unjust military tribunal rulings and other military abuses should not be subject to ordinary statutes of limitations, New Power Party (NPP) legislators said yesterday as several alleged victims’ family members complained of being denied access to evidence.
“The problem is that these are not ordinary criminal cases, but we currently impose ordinary time limits for taking care of them and providing redress,” NPP Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said at a hearing on new proposed legislation to establish an independent investigative body to examine past cases of military abuse.
“Many incidents reflect a different power relationship from ordinary criminal cases,” Lim said. “The military has weapons, lots of people and is closed to outsiders, so it’s different from a roadside crime — as soon as a problem occurs, it is possible for them to ‘take care’ of a lot of the evidence.”
Association for the Promotion of Human Rights in the Military director Chen Pi-e (陳碧娥) said that family members of the victims in abuse are often left with nowhere to turn because military officials habitually cover for one another and collude on testimony, while all evidence is typically in military hands.
“When my son had just died, my mind was completely blank, but after I slowly started to wake up and wanted to go to the base, they said I had to provide new evidence [to appeal the military’s suicide ruling]. I live in Taoyuan, but everything happened in Hualien. How I am I supposed to get evidence?” said Lee Cheng-ta (李正大), the father of Lee Ming-hsing (李明興), an army private who the military ruled had committed suicide in 2006 after being pulled out of the hospital by his superior officers.
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ office reopened the case after the Executive Yuan’s former Military Injustice Petition Committee found evidence of criminal error leading to death, but the Ministry of Defense refused to provide compensation on grounds that the statute of limitations had expired.
The committee was established in 2013 to review petitions on past military abuses in the wake of mass protests over the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), but referred only 11 cases to the judiciary for further review before disbanding a year later, with critics pointing to its lack of investigative powers.
Hung, brother of NPP Legislator Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), allegedly died from abuse while performing his compulsory military service.
Hung Tzu-yung yesterday said that addressing past military abuses was one of the “links” in achieving “transitional justice.”
Many of the political dissidents who were locked away during the White Terror period of political oppression were tried by military tribunals.
“In the past, superior officers and the judges in military tribunals were not independent of each other, so military trials were not compatible with fair judgment procedure,” Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said, adding that amendments to the National Security Act (國家安全法) passed following the lifting of martial law prevented previous military tribunal rulings being reopened.
Twenty-four Republican members of the US House of Representatives yesterday introduced a concurrent resolution calling on the US government to abolish the “one China” policy and restore formal diplomatic relations with Taiwan. Led by US representatives Tom Tiffany and Scott Perry, the resolution calls for not only re-establishing formal relations, but also urges the US Trade Representative to negotiate a free-trade agreement (FTA) with Taiwan and for US officials to advocate for Taiwan’s full membership in the UN and other international organizations. In a news release announcing the resolution, Tiffany, who represents a Wisconsin district, called the “one China” policy “outdated, counterproductive
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “[we] appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
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Johanne Liou (劉喬安), a Taiwanese woman who shot to unwanted fame during the Sunflower movement protests in 2014, was arrested in Boston last month amid US President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday. The arrest of Liou was first made public on the official Web site of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Tuesday. ICE said Liou was apprehended for overstaying her visa. The Boston Field Office’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) had arrested Liou, a “fugitive, criminal alien wanted for embezzlement, fraud and drug crimes in Taiwan,” ICE said. Liou was taken into custody