The inditement of Taiwanese NGO worker Lee Ming-che, currently detained in China, cited social media messages on Facebook and elsewhere as evidence of subversion. Unless we stand up and protest, anyone traveling to China could share Lee’s unfortunate fate.
The News Lens
Date: 2017/09/20
By: John Liu
When I read through Taiwanese activist Lee Ming-che’s (李明哲) confession made
Photo Credit: Reuters/達志影像
publicly in a Chinese court, all I could feel was frustration and fury. As a student, my hands are tied in terms of offering physical aid to my countryman. The least I can do is call attention to this outrageous show-trial. China is tightening control over its own people, foreign visitors, and even non-Chinese outside its territory. Soon, we could all be Lee Ming-che.
“Many stand beside Lee Ching-yu to demonstrate that Taiwanese people are not intimidated by China’s tyranny.”
Lee, 42, is the first foreign worker to be prosecuted under a law regarding non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which was introduced in January this year. He has been detained in China for nearly seven months having disappeared in March while traveling from Macau to Guangdong Province in southern China. Following his detention on the grounds of conducting activities harmful to national security, China had revealed nothing save that he was suspected of subverting state power. No specifics were offered to his relatives or Taiwan’s authorities. His wife, Lee Ching-yu (李凈瑜) has relentlessly pressed for information, despite the fact that many disagreed with her outspoken approach – most recently tattooing messages of support for her husband on her forearms and beaming the images worldwide. Her calls for public and international support defied an alternative narrative (link in Mandarin) pushed by some in Taiwan suggesting that her husband’s welfare may have been best protected by treating with China in secret. Yet many stand beside her to demonstrate that Taiwanese people are not intimidated by China’s tyranny.
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