Brian's Report on Taiwan Human Rights

Legal Human Rights
1

Good Morning Cyber-folks,
It is time for my annual Human Rights in Taiwan report.

Item One:
I (Brian) got reappointed to my august position on the Executive Yuan’s Committee on Human Rights (行政院人權保障推動小組) I would like to thank my parents, the Academy and the MOJ for this great, great honor. I got the nice little letter earlier this week.

Item Two:
None of Greaseball’s (excuse me, I mean the Honorable Chen Shuai-bian El Presidente del Taiwan) various human rights plans made any progress this year. There is not now, nor is there ever anticipated to be:

  1. A Basic Human Right Law
  2. A Human Right Commission
  3. Ratification of any international human right treaty

Item Three
Although I no longer bother to pay any attention to Taiwan’s NGO community, I would nonetheless assume that MOFA’s (Ministry of Foreign Affairs) plan to co-opt Taiwan’s NGO community into basically being an arm of MOFA, continues and is a success. The DPP has done an outstanding job of copying the “Evil KMT’s” approach of funding NGOs and then telling them to go out and spread the Good Word that “all is well in the ROC because of the enlightened government of the KMT/DPP”. The DPPs willingness to undermine Taiwan’s NGO community (which was never very strong anyway) for their own nitwit goals (i.e. Taiwan Independence) is a nice bit of evidence that the fucking DPP is the KMT without the brains or the money. Go Green!

Item Four
The use of the death penalty is back in vogue now that Greasball and his various stooges have gotten all the political mileage they can out of the End the Death Penalty Plan. As a former public defender I am happy to report that defendants facing the death penalty in Taiwan are afforded some of the worst criminal defense representation I have ever seen in my life. It must be nice going to the execution grounds knowing you were represented by an underpaid moron provided for you by the much heralded Taiwanese Legal Aid Society.

Item Five
As to the idea that there is lots of human trafficking in women and children in Taiwan, that is utter nonsense. The US State department was bullshitted into believing that by a couple of Taiwanese fake NGOs (i.e. NGOs that are actually tax dodges for some husband and wife teams who want to form a little NGO to launder money and beat the taxes.).

Item Six
Let me close on a positive note. Other than the death penalty, Taiwan, at least as far as I can see, has no super pressing human rights issues. Note, I said super pressing. I define super pressing (using the Old Skool Amnesty International definition) as being torture, extrajudicial killings, prisoners of conscious and the death penalty.

I am not saying Taiwan is some New Jerusalem of human rights; civil rights protections in Taiwan is horrible, especially for anyone who is not
Taiwanese
Male
With connections
And money

If you are not in that category (i.e. you are an aboriginal, a woman, a foreigner, a poor person, a person sans connections or just a regular Taiwanese Joe Six Pack with blue rubber sandals) you could easily be fucked over. Put simply the law, fairness, justice—do not mean a fucking thing in Taiwan.

Respectfully submitted,
Brian
The San Chung Human Rights Czar

2

A good read! :bravo: When’s the next publication???

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Agreed. Great stuff! :bravo:

. . . and yet, so sad . . .

HG

4

Thanks folks. Yeah, it is sad for the Taiwanese people. What I have come to see in my late 40s is some things simply are “in the cards”, some things are not.

Yellow Cartman, my wife and I’s next book publication will be down the road about a year or so. It will be an english book on Daoist training manuals of the late Qing dynasty.

take care,
Brian

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If you have any annual statistics on the death penalty (convictions and executions), please post them here - I am under the impression that the number of exections has fallen but I would like to see the figures.

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表33 監獄出獄及在監受刑人單位:人
2000 17
2001 10
2002 5
2003 7
2004 3
2005 3

In the 1990s, figures were in double digits every year.

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[quote]Item Five
As to the idea that there is lots of human trafficking in women and children in Taiwan, that is utter nonsense. The US State department was bullshitted into believing that by a couple of Taiwanese fake NGOs (i.e. NGOs that are actually tax dodges for some husband and wife teams who want to form a little NGO to launder money and beat the taxes.). [/quote]

How do the foreign wives(1 in 5 taiwanese men marry them now) and Mainland hookers fit into all of this? I’m just asking because it seems like a system ripe for abuse.

Dad is old needs someone to take care of him. Son marrying a foreign bride to provide kids, family care and sexual services. Seems a whole lot cheaper than going through a labor broker.

Nice to see you back Brian. I’ve always enjoyed your posts.

Okami

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I’m with Okami. The numbers of who’s trafficked into Taiwan, from where, and for what purpose differ depending upon what NGO, activist, or politico you talk to. So, Brian, without quoting State Department figures, what’s your best guess (besides just saying “minimal”) and what’s your take on the use of fake marriages to bring mainland and Vietnamese women over here as endentured servants if not full-out sex slaves?

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[quote]Item Five
As to the idea that there is lots of human trafficking in women and children in Taiwan, that is utter nonsense. The US State department was bullshitted into believing that by a couple of Taiwanese fake NGOs (i.e. NGOs that are actually tax dodges for some husband and wife teams who want to form a little NGO to launder money and beat the taxes.).
[/quote]

If these NGO’s are tax write offs why are they being funded from the immigrant communities in the US?

[quote]Ta’s predicament illustrates the growing abuse of migrant workers in Taiwan. Vietnamese workers at the shelter have been raped, beaten, sexually trafficked, coerced into forced labor and cheated out of their wages. The problems are endemic in a flourishing industry in which brokers in both countries profit by duping workers. Abusive employers are complicit, and lax Taiwanese labor laws criminalize workers who flee.

Taiwan officials acknowledge the problem, but critics say they’re not doing enough to stem it.

This is a big, big problem -- trafficking of Vietnamese workers and labor slavery,'' said Father Nguyen Van Hung, who runs the Vietnamese Migrant Workers & Brides Office outside Taipei in a gated compound that houses a small Catholic church and preschool. But nobody wants responsibility to protect them, not the Vietnamese or Taiwanese governments.’’

The office has dealt with 2,500 cases of victimized Vietnamese since it opened in spring 2004. Several hundred are sheltered each year.

The plight of the laborers has alarmed the Vietnamese-American community in California, which covers most of the shelter’s operating costs. Bay Area community groups raised $15,000 at a fundraising dinner for the shelter Friday. Nguyen flew from Taiwan for the event, and was given a standing ovation by nearly 300 in attendance.
mercurynews.com/mld/mercuryn … 220205.htm
[/quote]

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I was all set to continue this gag when it occured to me that it might not actually be a gag…

I have a mate who’s into travel diaries from the early Qing, so I guess anything’s possible.

:moo:

Ignore me I’m hungover and dribbling. Continue…

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Because their money spends the same as anyone else’s?
(and they desperately want to believe what they are being told)

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As to the Daoist manuals book, I suspect, strongly suspect, that books on Daoism have a much larger market in “New Age America” than the martial arts history book.

As to why the idiot overseas Taiwanese support the Taiwanese NGOs it is because they (the overseas Taiwanese) are completely fucking clueless…no fooling. I have had the misfortune of having to deal with them and they are living, by and large, in a dreamed up past about what Taiwan is. That too is one of the reasons the pro-indy dipshits get a lot of their money from California and New York Taiwanese.

take care,
Brian

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And that always surprises the hell out of me, I mean if you read anything political into Daoism you end up staring down the barrel at Pol Pot and year one.

HG

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Hate to mix up the threads here, but it occurs to me Brian that this is a killer topic for your Taiwan-kulcha-politics piece that you were playing around with before.

(1) Puzzle: In a manner that defies all reason, the overseas Taiwanese throw buckets of cash at govt-backed and sleazy, ineffective “NGOs.” I doubt even the Tamils rake in as much cash from their overseas extortion racket (or some other suitable comparison).

(2) Plausible explanations (i.e. to help build the import of your case and cover the alternatives): They’re forced to pay, like the OS Tamils? No, there’s some social status attached to getting involved with the NGOs, but nothing like what you’d call compulsion. They have family attachments to Taiwan? No, Grandma has long since been dumped in Fujian where it’s cheap to look after her with a domestic slave. They care about Taiwan? No, most of them have pulled all their money out long ago and don’t pay a cent in tax here.

(3) The answer: “[T]hey are completely fucking clueless…no fooling. I have had the misfortune of having to deal with them and they are living, by and large, in a dreamed up past about what Taiwan is.” Bingo. Tie in some bullshit theory on “identity construction” and you’ve got something that could publish in <>…

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[quote=“brianlkennedy”]Good Morning Cyber-folks,
It is time for my annual Human Rights in Taiwan report.

Item One:
I (Brian) got reappointed to my august position on the Executive Yuan’s Committee on Human Rights (行政院人權保障推動小組) I would like to thank my parents,[color=darkred] the Academy[/color] and the MOJ for this great, great honor. I got the nice little letter earlier this week.[/quote] They really like you, they really like you…

Well, nice to know that my reality isn’t really all that jaded but actually on the money… :s

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Awh come on… Pol Pot wasnt that bad. He was just mis-understood

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Well I suppose he opened the market up for rock spiders! :laughing:

HG

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[quote]Eric W. Lier wrote:
If these NGO’s are tax write offs why are they being funded from the immigrant communities in the US?

Because their money spends the same as anyone else’s?
(and they desperately want to believe what they are being told)
[/quote]
This slave rescue center in Taipei is not a 501 © non-profit, registered in the US. Any donations made from the US to NGO’s in Taiwan are not tax deductible in the US or Taiwan. Furthermore, the fact that over 2000 escaping slaves are rescued every year by this mission alone, is indicative of the scale of the problem.
Human trafficking in Taiwan by Taiwanese and the enslavement, abuse and disappearances of thousands of migrant workers are serious problems on the scale of the “White Terror”. The local authorities are unable or unwilling to address human trafficking in Taiwan. The most effective way to address this problem, is to do so in the US.

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It is actually quite interesting to me to see how human rights advocacy has changed over my lifetime. It used to be basically real organizations taking real steps to fight real problems. I am thinking of the old powerhouses like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Now, over the past decade or so it has morphed into a worldwide mini-industry with every nickel and dime dipshit opening a Human Rights NGO to get some dough coming in and get themselves (and their spouses) a nice easy bullshit job. It is a particular problem in 3rd world places like Cambodia and Taiwan. I remember a friend of mine was living in Cambodia during the mid 1990s and they had a absolute fucking explosion of NGOs. You could not walk two meters in fucking Phnom Penh without stumbling into some betel nut chewing mom and pop with their self proclaimed NGO trying to wallow in the Big UN Human Rights Cash Trough.

I remember too, on a more international scale, when they had the International Collation Against Child Soldiers. What a scam that was; make up a non-existent problem (child soldiers) then go around getting guilt stricken people/agencies/governments to give money so you can build a fat fucking bureaucracy, give yourself a huge salary, go to all kinds of Big Meetings in Geneva or Paris and have the NGO pay your bar tab ( I know cause they bought me two Jack Daniels on the rocks one time at a real upscale hotel bar here in Taipei, I really appreciated it! ) and then talk a bunch of shit about child soldiers (they used to love showing those pictures of the two kids, I forget their names, Frankie and Tommy, chomping on their cigars and toting their AK47s around while leading the Karem Army of Christianity up in northern Thailand).

It really has become quite the scam. If I was a Taiwan prosecutor I would really start busting some ass and put some of these fools in the slam. But then of course most of Taiwans hard working prosecutors are busy with the DPP inspired public corruption crime wave so they have no time to deal with the fake NGOs.

Oh so many crimes so few open courtrooms.

Take care,
Brian
p.s. the other major change is, when I was young most human rights advocates were basically sane, responsible adults—now human rights NGOs (in particular in Taiwan) seem to be a dumping ground for nut cases who seem to not even be able to hold jobs at bushibans. Of course I may just be getting cynical.

20

Non-ROC nationals in Taiwan would have to be nuts to do human rights work. Any immigrant in Taiwan, who does not have ROC nationality or special permission in writing to do volunteer work faces arbitrary arrest, extra judicial detention, and deportation by the ROC authorities.

[quote]Forumosa Wrote:
Volunteering in Taiwan
NB. Many foreign residents in Taiwan are not eligible to volunteer. To be sure you are not breaking any laws, seek written authorization from the foreign affairs police or other relevant agency[/quote]
That does not change the fact that human trafficking in Taiwan is a very serious problem and that immense pressure was put on the US State Department to remove Taiwan from the special watch list irregardless of ample evidence that the local Taiwan authorities are not doing enough to combat the problem and may even be complicit in human trafficking and gross human rights abuses .