Total Rule, Total Regression! Joint Statement Regarding the Police Arrest of Citizens and Attorneys Following the December 23 Labor Standards Act Protest

On December 23, due to the drastic and regressive amendments to the Labor Standards Act, tens of thousands of citizens took to the streets to protest and voice their dissatisfaction with the amendments. Absurdly, the roads surrounding the Presidential Office were blocked everywhere with water-filled barriers, and rows of police officers holding shields stood across the roads to block the way, making the Bo'ai Special Zone feel as though it had entered a state of martial law.

In the evening, during a clash near the Executive Yuan, some citizens reported being beaten by the police before being sent to the hospital. After the protest ended, many citizens still remained at the scene and refused to leave. At 11 p.m., the citizens relocated to Exit East 3 of Taipei Main Station to prepare to disperse and leave, but they were continuously blocked by the police, who prevented citizens, reporters, and attorneys such as Chen You-hsin and Ting Wen-sheng from leaving, restricting their personal freedom for nearly two hours. When the attorneys attempted to communicate with the on-site commander to understand the situation, the on-site commander did so "without stating any legal basis," and after Chieh-shou Road Police Station Chief Tsai Han-cheng cursed profanely, arrests began. During this process, reporters who were originally covering the event were pushed away and unable to exercise their reporting rights, while the attorneys and citizens at the scene were all bound with plastic zip ties on their wrists and crudely loaded onto police transport vehicles, being dumped off at various locations such as Guandu.

According to the Attorney Regulation Act, attorneys are inherently meant to serve the role of providing legal assistance to citizens on site and ensuring whether the police abuse their power. From the past martial law era to the present, Taiwan has never witnessed the phenomenon of "arresting attorneys" at a protest site. Such a scene, which would only occur in authoritarian countries like the "People's Republic of China," occurred in Taiwan thirty years after the lifting of martial law and under the total rule of the Democratic Progressive Party, which is undoubtedly a severe regression of democracy and human rights.

During this arrest, the police, as law enforcement officers, were unable to explain the legal basis yet restricted the personal freedom of the citizens at the scene for up to two hours before carrying out the arrests, which has violated the principle of the rule of law. Furthermore, the police once again used "zip ties" to restrain people, violating the Act Governing the Use of Police Weapons. Moreover, at the scene, more than one woman had her upper garments pulled off by male and female police officers during the arrest process, and while the individuals were half-naked, their hands were restrained with zip ties once again, severely violating the women's bodily autonomy and right to privacy.

The DPP had previously stated in a statement issued in 2009 regarding the amendment of the Assembly and Parade Act: "Democracy and freedom have always been the core values of a democratic nation. To realize these ultimate goals, the state must afford the maximum degree of protection to freedom of expression and the right of assembly and parade, (...) Regarding Taiwanese citizens being treated with police violence, an independent investigation committee should be established to investigate acts that violate human rights, but the Ma Ying-jeou government continues to act willfully and arbitrarily. Our party believes that this is the arrogance of power, and it also represents the lack of democratic literacy in the new authoritarian regime."

Those words still ring in our ears, yet during the year and a half since the DPP took "total rule" in 2016, it has not only failed to amend the Assembly and Parade Act, which was explicitly named by the review committee of the Two Covenants as violating the Two Covenants, but at the end of 2017, due to a labor protest, it also condoned such "totally regressive" restrictions on personal freedom and arrests. Here, we also want to return the final paragraph of the DPP's 2009 statement back to the DPP: "This is the arrogance of power, and it also represents the lack of democratic literacy in the new authoritarian regime!"

We demand that the DPP government and the Mayor of Taipei explain the decision-making process of this arrest operation, issue an apology, discipline the on-site commanders (the Precinct Chiefs of the Da'an and Zhongzheng First Precincts) and the Chief of the Chieh-shou Road Police Station. They should also investigate the law enforcement methods used during the arrest process, publish the list of those disciplined, and release the names of the police officers who used excessive force (the male and female police officers who stripped the protesters' clothes) within one month.

Finally, we also call upon the Executive Yuan and the Legislative Yuan to re-evaluate the amendments to the Labor Standards Act that have triggered this immense controversy! The "right to rest" is a right explicitly guaranteed under Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which has already been domesticated, and the state must not be permitted to arbitrarily enact regressive amendments.

※ Revision Note: According to the correction statement by the Taiwan Citizen Media Cultural Association, we have revised certain texts of the above "statement" using ellipses. We also apologize to the readers here.

Joint Statement Organizations

Taiwan Association for Human Rights
Taiwan Awakening Foundation
Covenant Watch
Judicial Reform Foundation
Economic Democracy Union
Taiwan Democracy Watch