Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

An excerpt of The Imprisoned Taiwan by Prof. Yuan Hon-Bin on why he wrote this book to defend President Chen

Translated by Jay Tu

During Chen's presidency, Taiwan became a de facto free country, ranked among the freest in the world and the freest in Asia. To me, this is a miraculous achievement. Of 1.6 billion of Chinese speaking people, only those 23 millions of Taiwanese received this enviable status as being free.

However, Chen Shui-Bian, a politician who created freedom for all Taiwanese, has lost his own freedom. This incredulous and ironic outcome is an insult to justice. I am bound to inquire into his case because of several reasons.

Inside a locked ROC hospital psychiatric cell with ex-President Chen Shui-bian

Michael Richardson

Chen Shui-bian is moved from his prison cell surrounded by guards

Taiwan Political Prisoner Report, Jan. 7, 2013. Because of serious health issues and severe depression, Republic of China in-exile former President Chen Shui-bian had been moved from his tiny punishment cell at Taipei Prison to General Veterans Hospital before my arrival to Taiwan. The move followed urgent pleas by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a team from the Washington D.C. based Human Rights Action Center as well as a prestigious panel of volunteer doctors.

Chomsky ‘safeguards’ Taiwan’s press

Taipei Times

Renowned US linguist and author Noam Chomsky of the US’ Massachusetts Institute of Technology expresses his opposition to media monopolization in Taiwan in this undated photograph taken from Facebook yesterday.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook page

Famed US linguist and activist Noam Chomsky lent support to Taiwan’s anti-media monopolization movement in a photograph shared on social networking site Facebook late on Saturday.

Chomsky, an 84-year-old linguistics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was seen posing for a picture believed to be taken by a Taiwanese student abroad, while holding a poster that read: “Anti-Media Monopoly. Say no to China’s black hands, defend press freedom. I am safeguarding Taiwan here in MIT.”

Chen Shui-bian’s punishment cell at Taipei Prison (Photos)

Michael Richardson

Chen was confined 23 hours per day with another prisoner and no bed

Taiwan Political Prisoner Report, January 4, 2013. Former ROC President Chen Shui-bian’s conditions of imprisonment, which broke his health and spirit, are indicative of Chen’s status as a political prisoner. The Republic of China in-exile has a penal system haunted by ghosts from decades of martial law when ideas of Taiwanese independence were punished by prison sentences.

Chen is now being held in a locked psychiatric cell at a government hospital in Taipei while he recovers from a list of medical and psychological problems incurred during his imprisonment.

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