Taiwan Church News
3397 Edition
3 – 9 April, 2017
Church Ministry

China’s Arbitrary Detention Of A Taiwanese NGO Human Rights Worker – Mr Lee Ming-che – Causes A Big Furore In Taiwan Society

Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong

Mr Lee Ming-che, a Taiwan citizen and a NGO worker for the Chinese human rights prisoners, had been detained by the Chinese communist regime for national security reasons over three weeks since his entry into China at Macau from March 19. “A resident of Taiwan, Lee Ming-che, is under investigation for being suspected of endangering national security,” according to a March 29 news release from Taiwan Affairs Office of State Council PRC.

For this unprecedented and arbitrary detention of Taiwanese citizen by the Chinese government, many human rights groups and NGO organizations in Taiwan held a joint press conference in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan asking China to respond immediately what kind of crime charging against Mr Lee and where he is detained.

As the official news release from Taiwan Affairs Office does not even try to clarify the questions raised from Taiwan society, “it is tantamount to tell all Taiwanese people that you are next Lee Ming-che to be forcibly disappeared if you dare come into China”, protested the NGO representative in the press conference.

Noteworthy is that Mrs Lee Ching-yu, the wife of Lee Ming-che, openly declared on March 31 that she would not hire any Chinese lawyer to defend his husband on any legal basis. This is because she, as a scholar long-term studying KMT’s white terror history in 1950s, clearly knows that any legal defense for the political prisoner is useless when the judiciary system is highly dominated by any authoritarian party politics. “I decide to fly to Beijing directly in order to understand the situation and save my husband!”, said Mrs Lee Ching-yu in the press conference on March 31.