President Ma repeats call for Chinese activist release

Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New Zealand

President Ma repeats call for Chinese activist to be released

President Ma Ying-jeou repeated a call Tuesday for the release of jailed Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, citing his administration's action as an example of Taiwan's concern for human rights development in China.

Taiwan has been concerned about the human rights situation in China, Ma said in response to a question on how Taiwan could help improve China's human rights condition at a news conference to release an English-language version of Taiwan's first human rights report.

"Liu Xiaobo is still imprisoned and we hope that he can be released," Ma said.

He said he gives a speech each June on the Tiananmen Square incident, a crackdown on pro-democracy student demonstrators in China in 1989, and has also called for the release of Liu and Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who has since been released, over the past two years.

Ma said Taiwan's concern for human rights in China does not follow the path of Western governments and is not "fashion-seeking," "but genuine concern," as Taiwan has been through national tragedies of its own in the past.

At Tuesday's news conference, which was attended by several government officials and foreign diplomats based in Taiwan, Ma said Taiwan's legislature passed two United Nations human rights covenants in 2009, and that the report is aimed at reviewing the implementation of the covenants in the country.

Ma was referring to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.

Ma said the government has to "review our implementation of the covenants and identify where to improve."

Ma said the significance of the English-language report is that it has been sent to a group of international experts on human rights, who will visit Taiwan in February 2013 to inspect Taiwan's human rights development.

Having international experts review the human rights report is in line with U.N. standards, Ma said.

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