In a recent celebration in Greater Tainan to mark the third anniversary of his presidency, Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) gave a speech in which he touted “human rights” as one of the three major achievements of his presidency. The other two were “sovereignty” and “environmental rights.” However, Ma’s rhetoric is clearly not backed by facts. Aside from signing two UN Human Rights Covenants into law, a token move, Ma’s presidency has no record of advancing human rights at home or abroad.
To the contrary, Ma’s presidency has been marred by incidents in which officials tried to restrict freedoms of expression and assembly. The incident where police beat up demonstrators and confiscated national flags and forcibly closed a record shop for playing Taiwanese folk music when Chinese official Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) visited Taiwan in November 2008 is still vivid in people’s memories.