FAPA EXPRESSES OUTRAGE OVER SENTENCING OF FORMER PRESIDENT CHEN

September 11, 2009

FAPA EXPRESSES OUTRAGE OVER SENTENCING OF FORMER PRESIDENT CHEN

The Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA), a Washington DC-based advocacy organization of Taiwanese Americans, today expressed outrage over the heavy sentences meted out on September 11th 2009 in Taipei to former President Chen Shui-bian and his wife Wu Shu-chen.

“This is political persecution by judicial means” states FAPA President Prof. Bob Yang. He adds: “Chen’s real “crime” is that he pushed the entrenched Kuomintang regime out of office in 2000, and moved Taiwan in the direction of freedom and independence.”

Yang adds: “Many international scholars have expressed concern about the legal process. If we examine similar past graft cases in Taiwan and other countries around the world, this unusually heavy sentence given to Chen only reinforces the belief of many Taiwanese citizens and international scholars that the charges against Chen are politically motivated. FAPA calls upon the KMT authorities to release former President Chen pending the further appeal procedures, which are bound to take a long time. His incarceration is making it sheer impossible for him to build an adequate defense, denying him a truly fair trial.”

Yang concludes: “The Kuomintang government could have moved Taiwan in the right direction by conducting a scrupulously fair trial. Instead, they blew their chance and turned it into a political circus, deepening the political divide in Taiwan.”

“It is a sad day for Taiwan’s young democracy.”

The life sentences to Chen and his wife are making it increasingly difficult to bridge the political divisions on the island. In the 1980s and 1990s, Chen was part of the vanguard of the island’s democracy movement, mainly consisting of native Taiwanese who had been kept out of the political by the ruling Kuomintang, which came over from China after World War II.

Historical Background

During some four decades of Martial Law (from 1949 through 1987), the Kuomintang regime – first headed by Chiang Kai-shek and later by his son Chiang Ching-kuo – ruled with iron fist, in a one-party system which ruthlessly dealt with political opponents. Chen and his wife themselves were victims of this system: in 1985 Chen served eight months in prison on political charges, while Wu Shu-chen was paralyzed from the waist down after being hit by a truck during a post-campaign rally.

Taiwan’s transition to democracy in the late 1980s and early 1990s was largely due to the determination and persistence of the group of opposition members of the Democratic Progressive Party, of which Chen was a leading member. His election to the presidency in 2000 was the culmination of Taiwan’s quest for democracy.

Observers in Taiwan and abroad agree that Chen may have made mistakes during his presidency, but that the charges against him, and the way the judicial process was carried out, reflect a heavy political bias. They point to the incommunicado detention during the first month after his November 11th arrest, the mysterious switching of judges at the end of December 2008.


2009年9月11日

FAPA就陳前總統遭判無期徒刑表達憤怒， 呼籲上訴期間釋放陳前總統

台灣人公共事務會(FAPA)今天（11日）就陳水扁前

總統以及夫人吳淑珍遭判無期徒刑深表憤怒。

FAPA會長楊英育表示：「這很明顯的是透過司法程序的政治迫害。陳前總統真正的罪行是因為他在2000年推翻國民黨政權，將台灣帶向自由與獨立。」

「許多國際學者對台灣的司法程序陸續表達關切。如果我們比較台灣與世界其他國家過去類似的貪瀆案例，陳前總統不尋常的遭到重判，正印證了許多關心的台灣民眾與國際學者的疑慮，認為此案受政治動機所影響。FAPA在此呼籲國民黨當局在這段上訴期間釋放陳前總統，尤其上訴程序恐怕拖上一段時間。陳前總統如被繼續羈押，無斥是使他毫無可能行使適當辯護準備，等於是先行否定他獲得公平審理的機會。」

楊英育最後表示：「國民黨政府應該嚴謹公正的審查案件，將台灣導向正確的方向。相反地，他們卻放棄這個機會，導致此案淪落為政治馬戲團，加深台灣社會內部分歧。」

「這是年輕的台灣民主過程中令人難過的一天。」