Dear President Obama:
Despite of the impressive achievements in democratization being made by Taiwan over the past two decades, many Taiwanese, and particularly those of us associated with Tati Cultural & Educational foundation, are troubled by the egregiously illegal detainment of our former president Chen Shui-Bian. Therefore, we are heartened by Professor Jerome Cohen’s June 11th letter, published on South China Morning Post, calling for “Taiwan’s law professors, legal scholars, social scientists and others with unique qualifications to promote public understanding…” to speak up against KMT’s, spear-headed by Ma Ying-Jeou, flagrantly zealous corruption charges against former president Chen and his family while ignoring many cases of similar (and perhaps even more egregious) misconduct by KMT officials and judge’s arbitrary ruling against the former president and his friends and family (“Professor Jerome A. Cohen calls for Taiwan’s legal scholars to speak out on law reforms” by Jerome A. Cohen; US-Asia Law Institute).
While Taiwan’s legal scholars do have duty to play the role of sounding board, we feel that the United States, as a global leader of democracy, have an even heavier responsibility in terms of sounding opposition and (if necessary) condemnation of such improper treatment of a former president by the current Ma administration. Professor Cohen, Ma Ying-Jeou, and dear sir, all three of you share a common tie: Harvard Law School. If you are willing to speak up against Ma’s (and KMT’s) injustices in the process of detaining Taiwan’s former president, I believe the future Harvard Law students and the future Americans will be very proud of your moral courage. And your legal alma mater won’t look kindly on Ma.
We sincerely hope that you speak up against KMT and Ma Ying-Jeou’s illegal prosecution against Chen Shui-Bian.
Best Wishes,
Yi-Chang (Leo) Wang
Taiwan Tati Cultural & Educational Foundation
Note: Letter was written on Friday, June 19, 2009
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