Want China Times
Date: 2015-06-08
By: CNA and Staff Reporter
Lynn Miles, a human rights activist who made a massive contribution to building
Lynn Miles takes part in the 228 Hand-in-Hand Rally to protest China’s deployment of missiles aimed at Taiwan, Taoyuan county, Feb. 28, 2004. (File photo/Huang Wen-chieh)
democracy in Taiwan, died of cancer in Taipei on Monday at the age of 72.
Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party and the party’s 2016 presidential candidate, who is currently on a 12-day visit to the United States, posted on her Facebook page that she was saddened by the news.
Tsai hailed Miles as a witness of an era and said she could not forget his words to her prior to her US visit that “(she) must safeguard Taiwanese people and must not let them be harmed.” A photo of Tsai and Miles at his sick bed on May 16 was also posted.
Tsai said that in the strict political suppression of the 1970s, Miles was driven by his sense of justice to help dissidents convey news about Taiwan overseas. She said that a lot of good friends like Miles helped “Taiwan to go from the path of undemocratic to democratic.”
