Taiwan | Annette Lu leads hundreds of supporters to visit Chen in prison

Former vice president Annette Lu this week led hundreds of supporters to visit former president Chen Shui-bian in Taichung Prison and announced that she would launch a nationwide hunger strike if Chen is not allowed to return home by Christmas Eve, the Taipei Times reported yesterday.
More than six mayors, 50 city councilors, county commissioners and representatives from various groups including the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the One Side, One Country Alliance and the Taiwan Republic Campaign responded to Lus call for a visit to the prison as a gesture of support for the former president.
Lu said she chose Wednesday, Dec. 10, to make the visit for three reasons: It was Human Rights Day, it was the anniversary of the Kaohsiung Incident and the anniversary of day Chen announced that he would run for president with Lu in 1999.
According to the Taiwanese daily, a group of Presbyterian Church ministers urged President Ma Ying-jeous administration to release Chen, saying that justice and sympathy are the foundation of a country’s stability and solidarity.
They said Chen’s six-year incarceration is unjust when many within Ma administrations coterie remain at large.
Chen’s son, Chen Chih-chung, confirmed that another application for medical parole had been sent to the Ministry of Justice this week, and that the family is hopeful of succeeding this time.
“It is extremely inhumane to put a country’s [former] president behind bars until he got afflicted with brain problems,” Chen told reporters when he submitted the application.
The Taipei District Courts forensic report states that Chen’s life is considered precarious now.
Asked whether he felt more optimistic about the current petition, since it was an approach recommended by the ministry, Chen, quoted by Taipei Times, said being optimistic was not the point, as “we just followed what they asked us to do.”
“We do not have much of a choice anyway. It is he who holds the power. President Ma said he would not interfere, but we all know that he is the one who has the final say in this, the lawyer said, calling on Ma to stop meddling in the case, ” Chen’s son said to the Taiwanese media.
Long-term democracy activist Shih Ming-te agreed that the nations system for medical parole is inhumane.
“According to existing practice, a medical parole can be granted if a prisoner is nearing the end of their life,” Shih said to the Taipei Times.
Shih asked the ministry to make public the standard and apply it to every prisoner.
“It would be a privilege if the right applies to one person only; it would be human rights if it applies to everybody,” he said.