Warning from NGOs’ International Press Conference: Failure to Resolve the Tai Ji Men Case Tarnishes Taiwan's International Image | WPN World People News

A number of judicial and tax law whistleblowers have banded together to pound the gavel of human rights and tear down the executive branch's bureaucratic walls!

On December 29, 2021, the Taiwan Association for Financial Criminal Law Study, the Tax and Legal Reform League, and eight other civil society organizations held an international press conference in Taipei, where international human rights groups, scholars, experts, and the media unveiled the serious problems caused by rogue bureaucrats in Taiwan and criticized Taiwan’s lack of respect for human rights. How come a civil society organization in Taiwan, the so-called "beacon of democracy and freedom in Asia," is still being persecuted after 25 years? Co-founder of the Tax and Legal Reform League, former law professor at National Taiwan University Chen Tze-Lung, as well as a number of judicial and tax whistleblowers, pounded the gavel of human rights to tear down the executive branch's bureaucratic wall! During the press conference, the event organizers announced that an open letter to President Tsai Ing-wen, dated December 13, 2021, and signed by 25 international scholars and human rights experts, had been submitted to her as part of Bitter Winter’s efforts. President Tsai was asked by scholars and experts to resolve the case as soon as possible.

Ten civil society organizations held an international press conference on the Tai Ji Men case in Taipei on December 29, 2021.

According to the event moderator, Taiwan's authoritarian history has persisted, and bonuses for tax collection encourage tax agents to issue unjustifiable tax bills, resulting in a slew of false cases. The Tai Ji Men case, also known as the Law and Tax 228 case, is a case of human rights violations comparable to Taiwan's infamous 228 Incident during the martial law period, in which countless innocent people were prosecuted. The Tai Ji Men case has gotten a lot of attention from around the world. "This drama, obviously detrimental to the hard-earned fame of Taiwan as a beacon of democracy and human rights in a region plagued by dictatorships,” writes the open letter to President Tsai.

"They spent in legal fees only, in twenty-five years of struggles, more than they would have paid had they settled with the National Taxation Bureau. They did not settle for a reason of conscience and justice. By settling, they would have admitted that they had been guilty of tax evasion and that they had accepted the illegal officials’ wrongdoings, something that is both against their principles and factual truth. Furthermore, this case was a mistake, a fabricated case from the very beginning,” stated the scholars and experts in the letter, referring to the bogus charges of tax evasion and the government's confiscation of Tai Ji Men's property. Tai Ji Men refused to compromise on moral and legal grounds.

Prof. Massimo Introvigne, editor-in-chief of Bitter Winter, believes that Taiwan's international image will continue to suffer if the Tai Ji Men case is not resolved and that failing to resolve the Tai Ji Men case is the best gift Taiwan can give to its enemies.

Prof. Massimo Introvigne, editor-in-chief of Bitter Winter magazine as well as founder and managing director of the Italy-based Center for Studies on New Religions, made four declarations through a video message: 1. All the international academics and human rights experts who have studied the Tai Ji Men case are Taiwan supporters. 2. As friends of Taiwan, they are concerned about Taiwan's international reputation, and it's only feasible to support Taiwan if the country's image is protected. It is impossible to promote Taiwan as a beacon of democracy and human rights while people in Taiwan continue to take to the streets demonstrating that their human rights have been violated. 3. Taiwan's worldwide image will continue to be tarnished if the Tai Ji Men case is not settled. As a result, failing to resolve the Tai Ji Men case is the best gift Taiwan can give to its adversaries. "To borrow a famous sentence attributed to Lenin, the government is graciously supplying to its enemies the rope they will use to hang Taiwan,” warned Prof. Introvigne. 4.Political solution is the only option.

Marco Respinti, director-in-charge of Bitter Winter, says “What is happening to Tai Ji Men becomes paradigmatic and stops to be a Taiwanese domestic affair to become an international concern.” “It could happen anywhere, and it could happen to all of us. In this sense, we are all Tai Ji Men now, and all of us should be concerned and engaged,” added Respinti.

According to Willy Fautré, founder of Human Rights Without Frontiers, criticized Taiwan’s bonus system for tax collection, saying, “The case of Tai Ji Men shows that the system of tax bonuses granted to public servants can lead to undue fiscal and judicial harassment for years and even decades. It also proves that this system is a form of organized corruption inside the state.”

“How is this possible? How democratic is the situation in Taiwan that actually the National Tax Bureau can have such a big influence even disobeying or not respecting the decision of the court?” asked Camelia Marin, deputy director of the NGO Soteria International. The corruption in Taiwan has reached such a degree that no one will correct officials who make mistakes, observed Marin, adding that the state often needs money, and it is problematic that the state can make some people pay large amounts of unjustified taxes to increase its budget by using court decisions to force the people to settle or compromise.

Prof. Chen Tze-lung said that the Tai Ji Men case occurred due to a political purge in the name of a religious crackdown and that tax collector Shih Yueh-sheng’s confession proved that the tax bills imposed on Tai Ji Men have been invalid from the very beginning.

Prof. Chen Tze-lung said tax collector Shih Yueh-sheng was a whistleblower. When he blew the whistle, saying that this case is a fabricated case and explaining that the source of the accusation of tax evasion is bogus, we should remove such falsehoods. President Tsai Ing-wen must make a historic decision: whether to make Taiwan a country that protects human rights and follows the rule of law, or whether to continue with the phony case and allow the country to fall further behind.

Prof. Tseng Chien-Yuan emphasized the importance of passing a political resolution in the Legislative Yuan based on civil society's request that the government overhaul the legal and tax systems since all voters could become tax victims.

Tseng Chien-Yuan, adjunct associate professor from National Central University's Department of Hakka Language and Social Sciences, has been a tax victim and has participated in the tax reform movement. He would have been a law professor in an ivory tower, believing that the law is all-powerful and that everything is well in the world, if he hadn't gone through this. He stated that he intends to introduce a political resolution in the Legislative Yuan next year through civil society organizations, requesting that the government improve the legal and tax issues completely, as all voters may become tax victims.

Chen Yi-nan, a co-founder of the Tax and Legal Reform League and an arbitrator, is disappointed that the Taiwanese government’s human rights violations against Tai Ji Men have caused the nation to lose face globally. He maintained that its hard-earned image of democracy in the international community should be cherished.

In any democratic government, the exercise of political power must be guided by law, not against it, according to a former tax auditor of the National Taxation Bureau in Kaohsiung. Tax evasion auditing is not a prosecutor's role, according to Huang, who also stated that prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen's use of fabricated evidence to incriminate people is a case of framing innocent people and abusing his authority, and that the seizure of Tai Ji Men's land based on an illegal tax bill is unlawful. This kind of tax bill has been invalid since the very beginning, he stressed.

Venerable Ming Guang emphasized that if a mistake is made, it must be corrected so that no one in Taiwan suffers from injustice and the people can live in harmony. He went on to say that this is the most important thing that public servants should undertake.

Dr. Hong, Tao-Tze, the leader of Tai Ji Men, has led his dizi (disciples) to promote a culture of peace with love and conscience over the years, according to Venerable Ming Guang, president of the Chinese Religious Association, and such an internationally respected cultural organization for the public good has been treated unreasonably and ruthlessly by the Taiwanese government for the past 25 years. Serving the public is a good way to grow as a person, according to Venerable Ming Guang, who also stressed the need of government officials correcting their mistakes so that the people of Taiwan are not subjected to injustice and can live in peace.

It is emphasized in the open letter from the 25 international scholars and experts that "after 25 years, frankly it cannot be enough to answer that this matter should be solved at the administrative or judiciary level. This was promised before, and did not happen. At this stage only an intervention by the government and the President of Taiwan can rectify the discriminatory actions of the National Taxation Bureau and the National Enforcement Agency, cancel the unjust tax bill, and give back to Tai Ji Men their sacred land. Experience has taught that without this political intervention nothing will happen.”

The letter to President Tsai concludes, “It is no longer only a group of concerned Taiwanese citizens, it is a larger international community of scholars and human right activists that urges you to act decisively and urgently.”

Source: Action Alliance to Redress1219