The International Review of the Two Covenants Debuts | WPN World People News

People carrying banners that read, "Violation of the two Conventions-Executive power violence is as terrible as war."

The Taiwan’s 3rd international ICCPR/ICESCR review meeting was held from May 9th to 13th at Evergreen International Convention Center. On the first day of the review meeting, premier of Taiwan Su Tseng-Chang and Chair of the National Human Rights Commission Chen Chu both attended. The protesters gathered outside the venue. Several civil groups, such as the Legal and Tax Reform League, the Action Alliance to Readdress 1219, and the Unit for Land and Justice, held signs around them, saying, "Violating of the two covenants - state violence is as terrible as war," and called for a speedy solution to the Tai Ji Men case and other human rights violation cases. The people do not want superficial censorship. Protecting human rights cannot just talk or even cover up the facts.

People dressed as dinosaurs, holding lobsters, and chanting "Go Human Rights! Go Taiwan!"

People acting as dinosaurs, holding lobsters, and chanting "Go Human Rights! Go Taiwan! They pulled banners saying, "No to lobster tax officials and dinosaur judicial officials who prey on Taiwan's human rights" and "Violation of the two covenants: administrative violence is as terrible as war", calling on the government to implement the two human rights covenants and stop using judicial and taxation methods to persecute human rights. Li Feilong, Secretary General of UN/NGO Association of World Citizens in Taiwan, said that Taiwan implemented the two Covenants at the end of 2009, which clearly stipulated that all government agencies should complete the revision of the law within two years. However, it has been more than 12 years. , the government has not implemented the two Covenants to protect human rights. There are 132 tax-related constitutional interpretations based on 812 interpretations by the Justices of the Judiciary, of which 57 (excluding No. 725) were declared unconstitutional (as of December 12, 2021). It is clear from this ratio that the tax law infringes on the people's rights in a very high proportion, especially the excessive discretionary power of the tax authorities and the nearly 10,000 interpretations of the letter orders of the authorities, the administrative power is far greater than the judicial power, but the Ministry of Finance still has not improved, infringing on the people's human right to tax.

Dr. Ming-zhe Liu stated that many wrongful cases are in desperate need of vindication, demonstrating that the government's system of redress for wrongful cases has failed.

Dr. Ming-zhe Liu, a human rights observer at the United Nations/NGO Association of World Citizens, said the Tai Ji Men case has been delayed for more than 25 years after all legal remedies and support from domestic and foreign sectors but has not yet been vindicated. The State is clearly in violation of its obligation to provide effective relief, and it is also in violation of the freedom of religious beliefs guaranteed by the two covenants. There is also the case of Chen Qingxu, who owed NT$18,000 and auctioned his only place of residence in violation of the principle of proportionality, a volunteer Ms. Huang was illegally and randomly arrested in the 919 Zhubei Incident, and the defending lawyer Zhang Jing for Ms. Huang was illegally searched and even detained by the prosecutor with her legal defense. … and other unjust cases need to be vindicated urgently, which shows that the government’s relief system for unjust cases has gone wrong.

The tax law severely violates people's rights. The Ministry of Finance has yet to make any improvements, which violates taxpayers’Human Rights

Professor Shih-Jung Hsu, Honorary Chairman of the Taiwan Land Justice Action Coalition, also led a team to the scene to say that the government has seriously violated the concluding observations of the two Covenants in 2017 and persecuted human rights. He said he was one of the government-appointed members of the 2017 review of the two Covenants, when President Tsai Ing-wen issued a press release stating that the spirit of the two Covenants would be the floor, not the ceiling, for Taiwan to promote human rights standards. Xu Shirong is very angry that the implementation of the two Covenants over the past four years has seriously violated the concluding observations of the two Covenants.

International human rights experts are in Taiwan reviewing the country's human rights report.

At the opening ceremony, the host, Tsai Ching-Hsiang , also the Minister of the Justice, said that the review meeting would establish a positive communication platform between the government and civilian organizations. Chen Ju, chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, mentioned that this was the first time that the National Human Rights Commission participated in an international review conference since 2020, the year it was founded. Taiwan was ruled by martial laws for 38 years, Taiwanese people fought long and hard to achieve democracy. She felt great responsibility to be the chair when Taiwan worked together with the rest of the world to pursue human rights. Taiwanese people should have the right to be protected and pursue human rights. The Premier of the Executive Yuan, Su Zhenchang pointed that the he especially treasured the result of generations of Taiwanese’ hard work, who fought with their lives and blood to achieve freedom, democracy and human rights. He hoped to get advice from all international experts in the meeting, so the government know where to improve.

Heisoo Shine, a current member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, mentioned Chen Ju and said that Taiwan's National Human Rights Commission will serve as Taiwan's conscience, which was impressive. She asked, which ethnic group had filed the most complaints? Chen Ju responded that at this point, her commission had received the most complaints about injustice sentence which accounts for about 60% of all cases; in general, Taiwanese people do not believe in justice in judicial rulings, which is an important issue faced by the current administration. And Chen Chu did not respond to the question raised by Heisoo Shine about what percentage of the complaints was solved by the government?

The representative from UN/NGO Association of World Citizens in Taiwan stated in the meeting that a recent case of legal and tax human rights persecution filed with the national human rights commission about their rights were violated by the administrative agency of the government, but the commission just sent out a letter to that administrative agency inquiring about the case, did not even conduct any investigation, then concluded the case with the response from the administrative agency. They did not even explain to those who filed a complaint and told them the case was dismissed. He questioned that the national human rights commission was merely a sender and receiver of those letters of official documents.

In response to the above remarks, the International Review Committee said it would review all the information carefully. The representative of the National Human Rights Commission, Gao Yongcheng responded that although the Control Yuan and the National Human Rights Commission were parallel, the Members of Control Yuan had superior power over the Commission, because the case was investigated by the Control Yuan already, Control Yuan should deal with it first.