Taiwan Church News

3224 Edition

December 9 - December 15, 2013

Church Ministry News

The Highest Court Mulls If The Aboriginal Paiwan Hunter Can Own His Shotgun

Reported by Lin Yi-ying

As being reported to illegally own a self-made shotgun, this hunting tool of the Aboriginal Pawan Hunter - Tsai Zon-chen - was confiscated by the police on September 30, 2009. And then, Tsai was also filed by the prosecutor as against the weapon control code. In the first and second trials, Tsai was declared innocent. When the prosecutor kept appealing to higher court, the judge delivered an U turn: Tsai was sentenced to serve 32 months in jail and fined for NT$ 100 thousands.

Now this case was kept going to the highest court to clarify if it is legal for the aboriginal hunter to own the shotgun. On December 3rd, the highest court held a debate court between the prosecutor and the defendant. Fierce debates was hotly exchanged inside the court; some aboriginal groups also demonstrated their support for Tsai outside the court. Finally, the judge Hse Mu-chin closed the debate and declared the sentence will be delivered on December 17th.

As the sentence of this case could seriously impact the future of aboriginal hunting culture, many aboriginal groups showed up to support Tsai with slogans: Hunting is Innocent! Return me my hunter culture! As the aboriginal hunters do not hunt the endangered species, breach the social order or destroy natural resources, actually they were engaged in a traditional activity of biological balance when they used their shotgun to hunt some preys. Therefore, it is not appropriate to persecute the aboriginal hunter in penalty code and stigmatize the hunting culture in juridical terms.