Digging Deep to Pull Myself Out of A Hole

  Tonight I opened up my own web domain (my first) and started a new blog dedicated to trying to erase the mountain of debt that accumulated throughout most of my 4-year-long battle for human rights and justice in Taiwan. Not only am I seeking donations to help me get squarely back on my feet so I can take proper care of my innocent two young sons who have also suffered from this nightmare, but I am also going to give something back to as many as I can for their kind assistance...and pay it forward too.

  You can find my new blog at Giving Up a Life's Worth of Music, Movies and More For My Kids' Future 

Time For Renewal and Coming Back to Life

  It’s been quite a while since my last post but I’m still here and still going to be sharing more of the nightmare of Taiwan’s injustices against foreigners.

From time-to-time throughout this long-running saga, I’ve needed to take a break from writing and posting materials to handle things going on in the rest of my life and/or to give myself a necessary psychological and emotional rest from recalling the many unpleasant and stressful events of this story.  

  During this current hiatus from blogging, the most significant thing I did was to travel back to Taipei in December for a week to see the newest joy in my life – my second son who I hadn’t seen for 8 months since I moved to Indonesia. The impact of Alice Yang and the nursing university’s evil fraud has been far-reaching - even blackening what should have been a much happier event when my son was born last January. Instead, unnecessary complications between my son’s mother and I have kept us apart, and for financial reasons I had to find work outside of Taiwan last year in order to stop the financial bleeding I endured for years in Taiwan. To make more progress in cutting down the mountain of debt I’ve accumulated in the past 4 years fighting the evil and injustice in Taipei, I’ve had to sacrifice being with my young son and seeing him grow up most of the first year of his life.

  The precious time in December with my younger son and reflecting on my role so far in his and my first son’s lives have brought me to some important realizations and inspired me to re-evaluate what I’ve accomplished since they were born and what I must do from here on. The nursing university fiasco and subsequent events the past 4 years have cast me far out of the stable, positive direction my life had been tracking prior. Seeing the innocent joy and existence of my one-year-old son, playing with him, and imagining all that lies ahead for him and my 11-year-old boy inspired me to some crucial, and in some ways difficult, decisions to try and pull myself out of this 4-year-long funk and get back to who I once was and what I know I can be as a good, loving father to my sons.

The Hypocrisy And The Audacity (Of Taiwan's Government)

  The Taiwan government's hypocrisy and double standards on the law, due process and human rights was on full display earlier this month in a transnational case involving a Taiwanese diplomat based in the U.S. accused of abusing her domestic worker and violating human trafficking laws among other things. 

  Apparently, the Taiwan government believes that Taiwan is the only place in the world where  everything is "done according to the law" and no one should question or challenge the actions and decisions of the authorities and judiciary. As well, in it's reaction to the arrest and detention of the diplomat, the Taiwan government showed it's nearly complete disregard for the issue of others' human rights, instead playing it's very popular "sovereignty card", whining incessantly that the case somehow involved China and disregard for Taiwan's sovereignty . 

  And in a farcical attempt to try and help Liu escape U.S. due process and law, the Taiwan government insisted for days that she was protected by diplomatic immunity in part because her alleged criminal misconduct was performed while on official duty. In perhaps the ultimate act of hypocrisy, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs even protested that diplomat Liu's "human rights were violated" in her arrest. What sheer audacity!

  No one in Taiwan's government, certainly no one in the judiciary, not even any of my lawyers from the Legal Aid Farce concerned themselves with my human rights as they were continually violated by undue process and selective application of or disregard for various laws and regulations. Trying to point out the various violations of my legal and human rights was like speaking in a foreign language to these people. Some even took the attitude that just by the mere existence of my case in the court and my having a lawyer provided by the LAF my legal and human rights were being safeguarded and protected. What a crock! Human rights are little more than empty words and a HUGE sham perpetuated by successive governments on the island. 

  Read this editorial for some interesting insight from the Taiwanese author on the Liu case and how it exposes the hypocrisy and truth of human rights in Taiwan: Human Rights Treated As a Slogan

  Here are a few of the many stories I came across as I followed developments in Liu's arrest and subsequent guilty plea:

Taiwan Diplomat in Kansas USA Arrested by FBI for Abusing Philippine Housekeeper, Embarrassing President Ma's Government 

Talk of The Day -- Taiwan-U.S. ties Tested by Diplomat's Arrest 

Details of Envoy’s US Arrest Emerge 

Taiwanese Diplomat May Wait in Prison for Months

02/09/12 Update: I've started a new blog entitled Giving Up a Life's Worth of Music, Movies and More For My Kids' Future 
 

Putting a Price on Life and Human Rights in Taiwan

  I came across a very enlightening editorial in the Nov. 7 Taipei Times newspaper about the Taiwanese judiciary's recent ruling that the mother of a wrongly convicted and executed young serviceman would receive $3.4 million in compensation for the loss of her son. While highlighting several troubling aspects of this case, author Lin Feng-jeng aptly points out the Taiwanese judiciary's and government's penchant for claiming that everything they do is "done according to the law." 
  According to the faulty logic of this oft-used excuse in Taiwan, the young man's confession under torture and duress, his execution, the lack of punishment for those guilty of violating his human and legal rights and for orchestrating his conviction and execution, were all handled "according to the law." 
  In my case, I was also told numerous times by the judge, prosecutor's and staff at the prosecutor's office, and even by some lawyers, that everything about my case was being handled "according to the law." In fact, my last lawyer, in a fit of anger while we were arguing about how poorly my case was being handled by the court and how much my legal and human rights were being violated, told me point-blank that "The truth didn't matter." He went on to explain that in Taiwan's courts, what judges care about is "who has the evidence" that the judge deems relevant according to his own thinking. Put simply, the parties in court are at the whims, fancies and biases of the particular judge, and whoever is lucky enough to be in the judge's favor will win the case!
  Read the editorial for more about how the law, judiciary and government handle legal and human rights in Taiwan:  Vote For a Legal System That Is Just

Not Even Marriage & Family Escape Injustice in Taiwan

  In yet another sterling example of how Taiwan's authorities so often disregard foreigners' legal rights and how decisions are made in a vacuum - lacking common sense, decency, compassion or adherence to international principles of human rights - here is a September 2011 story from the island's press about scores of international marriages in Taiwan blighted by the heavy-handed and callous treatment of the foreign spouses by the National Immigration Agency and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Quite often in matters involving foreigners, the authority's (mis)handling of their cases involves elements of politics as much as institutional and/or personal bias against non-Taiwanese.

Dealing with a misguided MOFA 

Foreigners in Taiwan: Beneath the Law and Human Rights

  For white-collar professionals like myself, Taiwan is already a very scary place when it comes to matters of Rule of Law, due process, human rights and human dignity when attempting to seek justice as a victim of a crime or defend oneself from false allegations perpetrated by a Taiwanese. For migrant workers such as domestic helpers and assemblers in factories, many in reality treated as "slaves", Taiwan's authorities and the judiciary are even harsher in denying even the most basic of legal and human rights to those accused of wrongdoing or who are merely witnesses detained to aid in an investigation. 
  What has happened in my 4-year legal and human rights nightmare is symptomatic of a much wider and pervasive problem with the treatment of all levels of foreigners who toil in the island's schools as teachers, in various business, academic and social welfare entities, and in the homes and factories throughout Taiwan.
  I'll write more in-depth about this in a later post. For now, here are two illuminating articles on just how Taiwan's authorities and judiciary continually violate the legal and human rights of those working in Taiwan:


Foreigners Being Unfairly Detained, Rights Groups Say

Foreigners Have Human Rights Too

02/09/12 Update: I've started a new blog entitled Giving Up a Life's Worth of Music, Movies and More For My Kids' Future
 

Time For Other Things in Life + Taiwan's High Court

   It's been a month since my previous post. I hadn't started out to take this much time off from blogging, but as the days passed without writing, then a week, and another week, I found it was much-needed time off to focus my attention on some other things and to spend more time enjoying some activities with colleagues, relaxing with some movies and old TV shows in my apartment, and on Oct. 15 celebrating birthday #49 thanks to the thoughtfulness of my colleagues, staff and many friends old and new across the world. It was also a good occasion to reflect a bit on how far I've come since the darkest days of 2007, where I am now, and where I'm going from here on in. 

  Just prior to this month-long hiatus from blogging, I got some not-so-surprising news from the Taiwan High Court about the appeal filed by my friend. As I had expected, the High Court spun some flimsy reasons for rejecting the appeal - the latest effort by Taiwan's judiciary to thwart a foreigner's lawful due process. 

  According to my Taiwanese friend who filed the appeal, these are the central reasons given by the High Court for rejecting the appeal:

1. My friend can't appeal on my behalf because she is not a lawyer (Note: This is contradictory to what the court said to my friend before she filed the appeal. The court and my previous lawyer said the appeal didn't have to be made by a lawyer. My friend COULD file the appeal on my behalf with a Power of Attorney filed by me).
2. My friend can't appeal on my behalf because she is not my spouse or relative (Note: This point was never raised by my former lawyer or the High Court before and...What law in Taiwan says an appeal can only be made by a spouse or relative? How many foreigners in Taiwan have a Taiwanese relative or spouse to file an appeal for them?
3. The person filing the appeal should be knowledgeable about relevant laws and procedures.
4. If I can't appear in court myself, I must have somebody the judge would approve to appear on my behalf. The court rejected my friend as my representative.

    Here is the court's decision:

02/09/12 Update: I've started a new blog entitled Giving Up a Life's Worth of Music, Movies and More For My Kids' Future