Dear University Presidents,
I am addressing university presidents in Taiwan, as well as in America, in view of long-standing human rights abuses at a Taiwan university.
In 1999, I was illegally dismissed from National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), in Tainan, Taiwan. Defamatory accusations were used, later discredited by the Ministry of Education on appeal (attached).
When the Ministry of Education ruled in my favor on 8 January 2001, the university claimed "foreigners" had no right to appeal. Both the court and the Ministry of Education rejected this. Moreover the university itself had previously held appeal hearings, proving they were bogus.
NCKU faculty maintain academic exchanges with universities in my country, the United States, where their rights are insured. Yet NCKU shamelessly denied an American professor equal protection under the law.
Emboldened by faculty ignorance or passivity, NCKU, under the administration of Kao Chiang, refused to enforce the Ministry ruling for nearly two and a half years, though the Ministry sent ten warning letters (attached). Even when I was reinstated the university tried to impose penalties, as if the MOE ruling had no effect.
This is a brazen defiance of law and human rights as most civilized societies understand them. Still NCKU colleagues did nothing.
My experience with Taiwan's other "democratic" channels proved just as dismal. Emails I sent to Taiwan's premier and president received automated replies.
I went directly to the Office of the Control Yuan in Taipei. Through a translator I asked how university officials could commit abuses without penalty. The official said he would reply to a Chinese colleague at NCKU's Teacher's Union. My colleague said he was never contacted.
The court upheld the Ministry ruling but seemed to go out of its way to protect the university, despite its duplicity and rights abuses.
My libel suit against review members who used unproved accusations failed. The court argued since the accusations did not circulate outside the committee it was not libel.
All statutes I know say defamation is committed if one other party hears (slander) or reads (libel) it. Indeed, those accusations did more damage inside the university than they would have outside it. As recently as two years ago a student told me her classmates believed false claims made in a secret defamatory letter used to insure my dismissal, which I saw only by court order.
Despite willful, malicious, defiant, and repeated violations of laws and human rights, the court imposed no punitive damages against the university. To this day, no official has been punished, either by the courts or the Ministry of Education.
My claim for compensation for costs fighting my appeal, including legal fees and travel to renew my visa, was rejected on the basis I should not have stayed in Taiwan during my appeal.
Other channels of remedy proved futile. No Taiwan human rights group responded with assistance. If brazen human rights violations at a major university are not a concern, what is?
When a taekwondo athlete was disqualified, pro bono assistance was promptly offered. When NCKU students illegally shared copyrighted files online, Taiwan lawyers promptly offered pro bono assistance.
Which is a better cause? Students who share files illegally or an American professor whose rights are violated at a major Taiwan university?
Despite pretentious editorials about human rights abuses in Mainland China, Taiwan's English-language newspapers ignore the case. One reporter was even stopped from reporting it. The editor "explained" he was awaiting "further developments," though the case was 12 years old! The Taiwan press didn't await "further developments" in the taekwondo incident.
In Mainland China, with official censorship, citizens expose human rights abuses. In Taiwan, with a free press, newspapers won't expose human rights abuses at a major university! (See my blog for documentation at http://rdca45b.blogspot.tw/
(NOTE: After 13 years, one paper finally published a letter that referred to the case. See http://www.taipeitimes.com/
At least one Chinese-language newspaper published my case. But the focus was on two sides, as if this was a matter of arbitration, not justice. Yet clearly the university was wrong. The MOE said so. Are legal rulings meaningless in Taiwan?
A lack of legal sanctions against university officials will discourage faculty from contesting abuses, whether in promotion, grading, funding, or research. This will undermine the university system in Taiwan. A society without remedy is a society without hope.
Having exhausted all channels of remedy, I appeal to universities here. As an enlightened franchise, you know this is a test whether there are human rights, law, and lawful remedy in Taiwan. It also tests the role faculties are willing to play to insure human rights in Taiwan.
I lost four years of my career. Yet I have received no compensation, no formal apology, and no official has been punished.
Is violating the rights of an American professor of no consequence here? Yet remedy is guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights your Legislative Yuan ratified on March 31, 2009.
Part II, Article 2, Section 3 states (my emphasis):
3. Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes:
(a) To ensure that any person whose
rights or freedoms as herein recognized are violated shall have an effective remedy, notwithstanding that the violation has been committed
by persons acting in an official capacity;
Because Taiwan's courts neglected their deterrent function, the university continues to defy legal rulings. Despite human rights violations, it brazenly suggests on its web page it did nothing wrong (http://news-en.secr.ncku.edu.
Do Ministry and court rulings have legal force in Taiwan? How can a university violate a professor's rights yet post that "The resolution to discontinue his employment followed the required procedure"?
If violating human rights is "required procedure" at National Cheng Kung University then that university should be discredited as an academic institution. For a detailed rebuttal of these posts, see my dedicated web page at http://rdca45b.blogspot.tw/
Though NCKU's Secretariat once chaired the Faculty Union that contested my illegal dismissal, he now claims, along with the university president, no illegal dismissal occurred. "When the butt changes, the head changes."
My illegal dismissal included numerous human rights violations. If that is a "discontinued employment," then theft is a transfer of property, kidnapping is a quick adoption, and rape is a one-sided love affair.
Though the Ministry of Education warned the university it must investigate accusations, the Secretariat now, with apparent impunity, repeats malicious accusations as fact:
If the Secretariat's accusation were true, I would have been indicted under articles mentioned. Repeating a lie does not make it true, it makes it libel.
It's clear university officials were humiliated by losing the case. Like children, they now whitewash their actions, impugning my reputation to save theirs. I blame the lack of deterrent penalties by the courts and the Ministry of Education for this brazen arrogance.
The basis of a civilized society is remedy. But I have lost faith in remedial channels in Taiwan, as seen in court rulings, the inaction or ineffectual responses of the Ministry of Education and other government agencies, the lack of press exposure, the silence of colleagues, and the indifference of human rights groups.
No university should violate rights with impunity. I ask Taiwan's universities to insure a proper administrative closure to this case so that academic exchanges with universities in democracies abroad can be maintained with mutual respect.
Sincerely,
Richard de Canio
formerly Associate Professor
Department of Foreign Languages and Literature
National Cheng Kung University
Tainan, Taiwan
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