Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Activists testify to UN group about Lee

Taipei Times

Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling, left, and Covenants Watch chief executive Huang Yi-bee display their visitor permits at the UN Palace of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday.
Photo: courtesy of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights

Taiwanese rights campaigners on Wednesday testified before the UN Human Rights Council’s Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances about China’s detention and trial of human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲).

The quiet change of Japan’s policy

Masahiro Matsumura

In the shadow of the seemingly waning global Pax Americana and a would-be regional Pax Sinica, now acutely complicated by the ongoing North Korean crisis, Japan has recently taken some low-profile yet significant initiatives in its Taiwan policy.

Without careful reading, these initiatives appear mutually unconnected, but they in fact reflect Tokyo’s major strategic recalculation under growing uncertainty in the regional security environment.

Shedding skins show true colors of diehards

James Wang 王景弘

The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), under which Taiwan was a one-party state for near half a century, is finally in decline — after being routed in the elections it has now been asked to return its ill-gotten party assets, and its cadres who lost power are busy competing for the their piece of the pie.

Old members are revealing the true color of their “bones.” While some are now saying they have “blue [KMT] skin with Taiwanese bones,” an old KMT member who has spent his whole life devoted to fighting the Chinese communists has recently revealed his red (communist) bones, saying that he is no longer anti-communist and vowing to “promote unification” from this point on.

Premier urges Lee Ming-che’s swift release by China

Taipei Times

Premier William Lai (賴清德) yesterday called on the Chinese authorities to quickly release human rights advocate Lee Ming-che (李明哲) and said he has ordered agencies to prioritize work to facilitate his return to Taiwan.

“Lee works at a non-profit organization as a human rights advocate. There is no way he could subvert the Chinese government,” Lai said. “I felt sorry for Lee being forced to confess at a trial in a manner nobody could accept.”

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