In the fifth consecutive year Freedom House was reporting a decline in political rights and civil liberties worldwide, Taiwan remained stable, though the watchdog for the second year in a row raised questions over government interference in the mediaUS-based watchdog Freedom House released yesterday its annual Freedom in the World report, with little change in Taiwan’s ranking despite some concerns over continued government interference with the media.
Based on the organization’s initial findings for last year, which were to be made public at a conference in Washington, Taiwan scored 1 in the political rights sphere and 2 on civil liberties, the same as the previous year.
“Taiwan remained one of Asia’s strongest democracies,” Sarah Cook, Asia research analyst and assistant editor at Freedom House, told the Taipei Times by e-mail yesterday.
“Municipal elections held [on Nov. 27] were widely viewed as free and fair, despite a shooting at a rally the evening before the polls,” Cook said.
She did not mention, however, the rapid mobilization by some senior Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials to exploit the shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文) for the party’s benefit the following day.
On the handling of the corruption charges against former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), Cook said: “Procedural irregularities evident in earlier stages of ... [the] case did not appear to repeat as the case moved up the judiciary during the appeal’s process.”
My article, published today in the Taipei Times, continues here.
12 comments:
"She did not mention, however, the rapid mobilization by some senior Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials to exploit the shooting of Sean Lien (連勝文) for the party’s benefit the following day."
And did not the Taipei Times itself move earlier this week to exploit the shooting of Gabrielle Gifford with the insinuation that Sarah Palin and the Tea Party were somehow responsible?
I'm sorry Michael but to write that after the "In Sarah's Crosshairs" piece the Taipei Times published as its headliner on Monday is a bit rich.
Hi Mike. A few things in response:
You made very valid points on the subject of the Gifford shooting in your letter to the TT. That said, it should be noted that the article we ran was by The Associated Press, which on page 3 does mention a Palin Web site that put Gifford under crosshairs. Now, of course a very valid case could be made that a Web posting and actually shooting at people is a hell of a cognitive leap — I fully agree with you on that. I am, however, deputy news chief in the local news section, so I have very little input in terms of what goes into our international coverage. Newspapers are not as organic as one would think; there's a lot of compartmentalization. Should the editor who handled that page have used a different, perhaps less contentious sub-head? Perhaps.
However, even if one disagrees with that subhead on Monday, this does not mean, in my opinion, that one should not, a few days later, do his job. I can't, writing the story, say, Gosh, they wrote that on Monday, I'd better self-censor because it'll make us look "rich." I had to do my job, and I was stating a fact.
Hope this sheds some light on what happened on Monday and today.
All good wishes,
Michael
Correction: Should have written Agence France-Presse (AFP), not AP.
"Should the editor who handled that page have used a different, perhaps less contentious sub-head? Perhaps."
Then perhaps you could discreetly mention my point to that other editor? I say you'd be doing yourself, and the newspaper, a favour.
The talks about Sarah Palin are about her words that might have been incited people of less self-control to go extreme.
What Michael said here, however, is about how the KMT made use of a shooting AFTER it happened. Michael's description is supported by solid evidence. Just to name one, Chiu Yi (邱毅) said in a talk show after the shooting that Tsai Ing-wen was the one behind the shooting.
I don't see any relevance between Michael's words and comments about Sarah Palin.
Taiwan Echo: please re-read my first comment above - the stricture applies to the Taipei Times choice of AFP article, or as Michael kindly points out, the editor's choice of sub-heading, which insinuated that the Tea Party was to blame AFTER the shooting had happened.
It's not good form to criticize a political party for something which you yourself, or your associates, have similarly engaged in.
Mike:
We both agree at this point that the subhead used on Monday made a connection that was unwarranted. Beyond this — and because I think this is an interesting and important question — care to share your thoughts on Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa against Salman Rushdie over the publication of The Satanic Verses?
I agree with you that anyone who kills or attempts to kill another individual over “ideas” must have some form of mental problem. In other words, the kid who shot at Gifford did so not because he was following instructions from Sarah Palin or the Tea Party, but because he was deranged (and had access to dangerous weapons). I would also say that any Muslim who attempts to assassinate Salman Rushdie would be equally mentally unbalanced, as the great, great, great majority of Muslims would not act on the fatwa..
That being said, one could also argue that had it not been for the fatwa, the thought of assassinating Rushdie for “insulting Islam” would not have crossed the mind of any Muslim, deranged or otherwise. So the act — the assassination — stems from a planted idea. Case in point, Rushdie didn’t have to hide prior to the fatwa and was not barred from traveling on Air Canada, for example.
Now, one could counter that as a religious edict, a fatwa is more than just an idea, that it is more substantial than, say, the picture of Gifford with crosshairs on Palin’s Web site. What this leads us into, therefore, is a situation where the act is not so much related to an “idea,” but rather contingent on one’s definition of religiosity and edicts. As I argued earlier, regardless of the context, whoever resorts to this type of violence must be mentally unstable. Could not a case, then, be made that the kid who shot at Gifford saw the crosshairs picture as an edict, or in religious terms? Should this be the case, wouldn’t that picture have served as the seed of the act itself, just as the fatwa would have planted the idea in the mind of someone who, absent that edict, would never have considered such an act? Does this not, then, impose responsibilities on people who use the language of violence, not so much because they are ordering acts of violence (I’m sure Palin wasn’t), but because of the impact such ideas might have on deranged minds?
Michael,
Yes I agree there's an interesting and important issue here. First of all however, I must stake my position that either a man is responsible for his actions or he is not; I stipulate to the premise that he is, and although I admit the usual caveats to that (which pose non-trivial problems), whatever some external "authority" may have said is not one of them. A man's life is his own, and whatever "causes" he may point to, only he can decide how to respond to them.
"What this leads us into, therefore, is a situation where the act is not so much related to an “idea,” but rather contingent on one’s definition of religiosity and edicts."
Perhaps; but does not the following of edicts presuppose an ethics and psychology that outsource ethical responsibility for the nature and direction of one's actions to external "authorities"?
In addition, I think that, although there always have been and probably always will be lunatics, there is an open question here of to what extent the sloppy or downright perverted use of language, especially in a context such as political rhetoric, affects those of unsound mind. I don't know the answer to that and I suspect it would be difficult to prove one way or the other.
I have an anecdote to follow that point up: just the other day, I had reason to raise this issue of linguistic corruption to a student at Cheng Kung University (see here: http://mirrorsignalmove.blogspot.com/2011/01/email-out.html), concerning the widespread use of the adjective "free" to modify "market". To describe just about any particular market throughout the globe today as "free" can only be either (a) perverse propagandizing, or (b) grossly ignorant, and therefore probably deliberately so [which brings us back to (a)].
Perhaps the use of violent language and imagery in political rhetoric is increasing, I don't know but I would guess that it probably is, and I'd say that it is not a hopeful signal.
Re-post of commenty by Taiwan Echo, which for some reason disappeared from this section:
Taiwan Echo has left a new comment on the post "Taiwan rights ranking stable: Freedom House":
Yes, mike, I know what you meant. But I don't think you got mine.
You said, which insinuated that the Tea Party was to blame AFTER the shooting had happened.
Sure, "blame for a shooting" can only occurs AFTER the shooting. There's no need to emphasize that. When I used capital AFTER in previous post, I was not referring to the "blame," but "the actions to blame."
That is, Palin was criticized for her PRE-shooting actions without proof of connection to the shooting (so people shouldn't have done so);
The KMT was criticized (by Michael here) for POST-shooting actions with proof of making use of the shooting (so it's a justifiable criticism).
They are two totally different approaches.
Btw, mike, the TT article, which I agree with you about the subtitle, which didn't mention anything about the Tea Party. Even though Palin is the heavyweight in Tea Party, the crosshairs were made by Palin and Palin alone, and that's what TT's subtitle pointed to.
Did you just assume that the TT was blaming the Tea Party when TT didn't say such a thing ?
If yes, then, what's the difference between your action and what you criticize ?
"Yes, mike, I know what you meant."
If that's true, then I don't understand your fixation upon the actions rather than the blame as a criticism of my point.
"But I don't think you got mine."
I still don't, sorry!
"They are two totally different approaches."
Only in that particular aspect of pre vs post shooting, which seems to me irrelevant to my point, which was solely about the wrongful insinuation of responsibility.
"Did you just assume that the TT was blaming the Tea Party when TT didn't say such a thing ? If yes, then, what's the difference between your action and what you criticize?"
Yes, and the difference is categorical. Sarah Palin is a high profile figure in the Tea Party, so, in reading the TT article on Monday, it is a reasonable assumption to include the Tea Party as an intended recipient of blame by extension from the TT's naming of Sarah Palin. By contrast, assuming that Loughner opened fire because of Sarah Palin's crosshairs on a map is a ridiculous presumption which is different in kind.
I'm sorry Taiwan Echo, I really cannot understand what you're getting at. Call me all the names under the sun if you wish, but I've tried and failed to understand your point and I'm not going to say anything more about this topic now.
mike,
"Only in that particular aspect of pre vs post shooting, which seems to me irrelevant to my point, which was solely about the wrongful insinuation of responsibility."
Your argument would have been substantial if what Michael said about the KMT was that the KMT arranged the shooting, or what KMT said or did somehow caused the shooting to happen , thus the KMT is responsible for the shooting and that's what to blame -- just like what people criticize Palin for.
However, that's not what Michale said. What he said was that the KMT made use of the shooting, not caused the shooting. You twisted his words into the category that the KMT caused the shooting to happen.
I have already said that Michael's statement is supported by facts. I really have hard time understanding why you couldn't get it, 'cos judging from the way you criticize others, I would assume you could have seen the difference clearly even before my explanations.
I believe further communication is futile.
"Yes, and the difference is categorical. Sarah Palin is a high profile figure in the Tea Party, so, in reading the TT article on Monday, it is a reasonable assumption to include the Tea Party as an intended recipient of blame by extension from the TT's naming of Sarah Palin."
Yea right.
When people criticize some specific words of former Vice President Lu （呂秀蓮）, they are criticizing the entire DPP;
When people criticize some actions of Su Chen-chang （蘇貞昌）, they are criticizing the entire green camp;
When someone criticize Lien Chan (連戰）, they are criticizing the entire KMT;
Nice try, man. Your explanation is even worse than what you tried to explain. You placed your own words in the exact same class of those you criticize. What I did here is nothing but pointing that out.
"You twisted his words into the category that the KMT caused the shooting to happen."
I plead not guilty, your honour.
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