Amnesty International: Report 2005 on Taiwan

[Eric_W_Lier]

The fact remains that the human rights situation in Taiwan has not improved and may be getting worse.

[Mr_PBH]

@Eric W. Lier

The fact remains that the human rights situation in Taiwan has not improved and may be getting worse.

Prove it. The AI report does not. Neither have you.

[bobl]

[quote=“jdsmith”][quote=“Hondu Grease”]knee-jerk reaction/judgement regarding Amnesty Int. is rediculous.

they have brought to light countless tragedies and aided in resolving conflicts.

I find it funny that the same folks that BLINDLY support the Bush machine feel it necessary to condemn any organization/group that supports human rights.

would folks like jdsmith be more content if the folks working for AI handed out bibles and “christian identity” booklets???[/quote]

Please tell me good sir, what are folks like jdsmith like? Maybe you should strap your knee down as well.

And I find it ironic that you poo-poo Anglo-centric Christianity and then expect human rights to be a cause of concern in Asia, Africa and the Middle East. HA

Seems to me that AI is handing out the conversion booklets with the list of dos and don’ts, and what do you feel those booklets preach: Doaism? Confucianism? Show me the long list you must have of human rights champions in Africa and Asia. Show me the governments that have sought human rights changes and succeeded. I bet I can find a few in the western hemisphere.

perhaps it’s because they prefer a world where human rights take a back-seat to profits and anglo-centrism???

Sure, and please show me a poor country that a system of human rights that AI would support as “The Correct Way.” It also seems to me that the poorer countries have the least effective governments, the most blatant corruption, and the worst record of human rights. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Where do you imagine the progress can come from? the UN. OK, fine, who funds the UN? Well, gosh, richer Western countries, DESPITE their being evil money grubbers. How much do those rich Arab countries do to promote human rights in the world?

I do not blindly support the Bush Administration, and I am actually quite critical of many things it has done…yet human rights groups who care more about tackling Goliath than laying the smackdown on the little baddies around the world are somewhat hypcritcal.

Large scale change comes from money, education comes from money, jobs and infrastructure come from money.

You do the math.[/quote]
Right on JD!
I don’t lockstep with Bush and his Buddies either, but the US has done more for human rights than most and to claim otherwise is rediculous(sp)

[bobl]

@Eric W. Lier

The fact remains that the human rights situation in Taiwan has not improved and may be getting worse.

It is so bad here that I am afraid to live here. (Not)
Any Prove you have?

[Eric_W_Lier]

Prove it. The AI report does not. Neither have you.

I didn’t write the report thus I am in no position to “prove anything” but some of the specfic examples were:

On the day before the elections, he and Vice-President Lu Hsiu-lien were shot at and slightly wounded in an incident which the opposition claimed had been staged

The death penalty remained in effect for a range of crimes.

[quote]The 10th retrial of Liu Bing-lang, Su Chien-ho and Chuang Lin-hsun, known as the

[LittleBuddhaTW]

Eric/Boomer/EOD, I think you need to drink a little less caffeine. I think AI is more concerned with widespread, institutionalized abuses and infractions. What you’ve listed are a few isolated incidents. For all of Taiwan’s problems, it’s not what I would call a major, systematic violator of human rights. It has no more of a human rights “problem” than most other developed nations, IMO. Perhaps you should find another “pet cause” to go fight for (maybe you could help Stray Dog help some of the many poor animals here, I think that would be much more worthwhile!)

[Eric_W_Lier]

Eric/Boomer/EOD, I think you need to drink a little less caffeine. I think AI is more concerned with widespread, institutionalized abuses and infractions. What you’ve listed are a few isolated incidents. For all of Taiwan’s problems, it’s not what I would call a major, systematic violator of human rights. It has no more of a human rights “problem” than most other developed nations, IMO. Perhaps you should find another “pet cause” to go fight for (maybe you could help Stray Dog help some of the many poor animals here, I think that would be much more worthwhile!)

I disagree. There is no greater cause than the freedom and rights of my peers, family and myself.
People have been unjustly detained, had their livelihoods taken away and deported for no other reason than their nationality or ethnic background. Hopefully that will never happen to you and if you belong to the correct group of Taiwan residents it probably won

[LittleBuddhaTW]

[quote=“Eric W. Lier”]People have been unjustly detained, had their livelihoods taken away and deported for no other reason than their nationality or ethnic background. Hopefully that will never happen to you and if you belong to the correct group of Taiwan residents it probably won

[zhujianlun]

Eric, to link the Scott Ezell case to Guantanamo Bay as you have is plain irresponsible. You are making your cause a laughingstock by this severely bipolar reasoning.

Human rights are very important and someone has to take up the fight at the risk of being lampooned by all and sundry. But you’ve got to pick your cases. As LittleBuddhaTW suggested, AI are at their most effective when they analyze trends and use the most egregious examples of abuse to embarrass governments. Scott Ezell’s case is neither indicative of a trend nor is it an egregious example of abuse. My apologies to members of his cheer squad, if there are any.

You would also be well advised to place what is happening now in the context of what used to happen during martial law and in the context of legislative gridlock. Things can’t always improve every year. Hopefully they can improve over the course of a legislative term or a presidency.

[Tetsuo]

@Eric W. Lier

The fact remains that the human rights situation in Taiwan has not improved and may be getting worse.

Just because they won’t buy into your conspiracy theory about Fred Frontier doesn’t mean they hate human rights.

[system]

I believe Mr. JDSmith put the smack down.

[anon24369109]

@Eric W. Lier

[quote]The death penalty remained in effect for a range of crimes.

[quote]The 10th retrial of Liu Bing-lang, Su Chien-ho and Chuang Lin-hsun, known as the

[anon24369109]

@Eric W. Lier

How would you define Taiwan?

Third world country with money.

[Eric_W_Lier]

Third world country with money. Big Grin

I just don’t see how Taiwan can be defined as third world. It has many characteristics of a third world state but also has many first world and second world state characteristics.
Definitions of Third World on the Web:

[quote]* The poorest nations of the world. Most third world nations are in debt to Western banks and governments or international lending organizations. Many depend on international aid to meet the basic needs of their population. (See Developing Countries.) This term has fallen into disfavor in recent years, replaced by terms such as Less-Developed Countyr (LDC), developing nations, and the Global South.[/quote]
  [www.icons.umd.edu/pls/reslib/display_glossary](http://www.icons.umd.edu/pls/reslib/display_glossary)

[quote]* Less-developed countries that are not capitalistic and industrialized (First World) or centrally-planned socialist economies (Second World); not intended to be derogatory.[/quote]
  [highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0 ... y_s-z.html](http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0070294267/student_view0/glossary_s-z.html)

* A country that has low levels of average wealth, industrialization and modernization, and often high levels of population growth and people employed in agriculture. Most are located in the tropical (low) latitudes in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

  [www.kzpg.com/Lib/Pages/Tools/glossary.html](http://www.kzpg.com/Lib/Pages/Tools/glossary.html)

[quote]* A name that came into use during the 1960s to distinguish the rest of the world from the two Cold War power blocs of the capitalist west (United States and Europe) and the Communist east (Soviet Union, eastern Europe and China). These were the first and second worlds, respectively; the rest was the Third World.[/quote]
  [www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/h ... ssary.html](http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/browse/glossary.html)

[quote]* Refers to all less developed countries as a group. Term originated during the Cold War, when the "first world" was the developed capitalist countries and the "second world" was the communist countries, although these terms were seldom used.[/quote]
  [www.personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/t.html](http://www.personal.umich.edu/~alandear/glossary/t.html)

* A synonym for countries in the poorest regions of the world – Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East and many countries in Asia. The term is still frequently used in this context, although it is an anachronism from the Cold War, vis-a-vis the First World of capitalist liberal democracies and the Second World of socialist central planning.

  [www.web.net/rain/glossary.htm](http://www.web.net/rain/glossary.htm)

* This represents 145 developing countries of Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It is characterised by low levels of living, low-income per capita, low education provisions, poverty and starvation. This is real people, with real problems, who don’t deserve to be wealth reserves for cheap labour or economic experiments for rich countries!

  [www.resist.org.uk/reports/background/econterms.html](http://www.resist.org.uk/reports/background/econterms.html)

* countries with economies largely based on agriculture and characterized by low standards of living, high rates of population growth, and general economic and technological dependence upon wealthier industrial nations. A very ethnocentric way of referring to other cultures because it ranks cultures below those of the “First World” like Europe, Japan, Canada, and the United States.

  [oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html](http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html)

* The causal plane or Sivaloka.

  [www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/book ... ssary.html](http://www.himalayanacademy.com/resources/books/virtue/SVGlossary.html)

[quote]* Another name for the low-income countries and middle-income countries as a group, that is, countries with relatively low to middle levels of per capita income.[/quote]
  [www.agtrade.org/glossary_search.cfm](http://www.agtrade.org/glossary_search.cfm)

[quote]* Countries of the world plagued by poverty, particularly in Africa, Asia and South America. Also referred to as the South (as opposed to the North) but excluding NZ and Australia.[/quote]
  [www.embassy.org.nz/encycl/t3encyc.htm](http://www.embassy.org.nz/encycl/t3encyc.htm)

* a rather vague term used to describe those regions of the world in which levels of development, as understood by such measures as GDP, are significantly below those of the economically more advanced regions. The term is increasingly seen as an inadequate description of the prevailing world situation since it disguises a significant amount of internal differentiation.

  [media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk ... 6_glo.html](http://media.pearsoncmg.com/intl/ema/uk/0131217666/student/0131217666_glo.html)

[quote]* Nations outside the capitalist industrial nations of the first world and the industrialized Communist nations of the second world; generally less economically powerful, but with varied economies. (p. 933)[/quote]
  [occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookb ... oss_T.html](http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/stearns_awl/medialib/glossary/gloss_T.html)

* underdeveloped and developing countries of Asia and Africa and Latin America collectively

  [www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.1](http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.1)

* Third World is a Jamaican reggae band formed in 1973. Their sound is influenced by soul, funk and disco and is considered by some reggae purists to be overly “commercial”.

  [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World_(band](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World_(band))

I know it’s off topic but it made you laugh.

[quote]* Third World is a term originally used to distinguish those nations that neither aligned with the West nor with the East during the Cold War and most were members of the Non-Aligned Movement, but today is used to name the nations with smallest UN Human Development Index(HDI) of the world, independently of their political status.[/quote]
 [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World)

So Taiwan must fall into a category all it’s own.
Taiwan is a forth world state or non state.
Perhaps a first and three quarters would be more accurate.

[anon24369109]

@Eric W. Lier

[quote]Third world country with money. Big Grin[/quote]

I just don’t see how Taiwan can be defined as third world. It has many characteristics of a third world state but also has many first world and second world state characteristics. [quote]

Fit’s my definition exactly as you describe it I should say. But I’m being facetious

But let’s get back to how people who have been deported for breaching their visa conditions have been denied their human rights.

[Hartzell]

Amnesty International: Report 2005 on Taiwan

Has there been an update on this Report for 2006?

Are human rights in Taiwan receiving more and more respect here now?