Paragraphs 186 and 187 of The Second State Report on ICESCR, National Police Agency, MOI merely emphasizes the rescue data for the past few years. The Agency does not mention the detailed data regarding its implementation plan, implementation methods (processed) and the number of people being transferred related to Article 29 of the original “Child and Youth Sexual Prevention Act.” Such data as the number of people inside and outside of the network, the number of people being arrested by entrapment, the percentages of both genders being transferred, the ratio on age distribution of people being arrested etc. are left out.
The “Child and Youth Sexual Transaction Prevention Act”（hereinafter referred to as “the original law”）has been revised as the “Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act”（hereinafter referred to as “the new law”）in 2015. However, due to the fact that the Executive Yuan has not established the date of implementation, the new law cannot be officially implemented. The original law is still being implemented. The original idea of solving problems by revising the original law was in vain. The National Police Agency continues to violate the freedom of speech67.
The content of each article on any criminal laws and regulations should be clear and definite to restrict the power of the state and prevent the state from criminalizing behaviors at will. The most obvious problem right now are unclear phrases such as “imply” and “impel other people to” in Article 29 of the original law. Since reflecting legal concepts in the Chinese language is difficult, it is easy for the police to interpret the law at will. Moreover, the original law enables easy and wrongful punishment on ideological grounds on reasons of “protection of child and youth” even though there is no mention of child and youth prostitution, if both parties are adults, or if there is no criminal act. Nicknames in the chat rooms are implicational, and the invitation of one night stands in the online forums are all possible reasons for transfer on the basis of violating the Child and Youth Act. Therefore, people with the aforementioned conditions are all possible targets of the police. To prevent such incidents, the police will not only pretend to be sex patrons but also induce victims to speak keywords, such as the amount for transactions or to agree to perform sexual acts, etc. This allows the policemen performing entrapment to obtain evidence to prove the victims’ motivations for sexual acts. In addition, to facilitate reporting efforts, the police will exploit victims’ fears attitude and not inform them about their rights and obligations. The police sometimes even stop recording during the report making process. This obviously violates the victims’ rights. To sum up, we consider that National Police Agency to already be in violation of the freedom of opinions, expression and information listed in Article 19 of the ICCPR.”
We suggest that：
National Police Agency not use violent law enforcement measures to block the communication of information.
<li><p>Unclear legal phrases in the “Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation Prevention Act” be modified to be more precise, and there to be a moratorium on entrapment until the implementation of the new law.</p></li> <li><p>With or without motivation for sexual acts or whether or not nicknames are implicational, no one should be convicted so long as there is no sexual act related to child and youth.</p></li> <li><p>The National Police Agency should examine its means of implementation and announcing the content of related implementation plans, and explain the requirements of entrapment.</p></li>The film “Shall We Swim?”, issued by the Gender Equality Education Association in 2011, is a teaching material for sex education. Its content includes issues relating to gender equality and sex education. It is a film independently funded, produced, issued and promoted by the NGO. The format includes a “public version” accompanied by an “introduction brochure” for instructions in related courses.
The K-12 Education Administration, Ministry of Education has sent an official letter to all schools on January 9, 2015 stating that “before the film (Shall We Swim?) has completed the examination and classification procedures, all schools should not promote and use it.” This bans an individual civil publication.
Parent representatives to the Gender Equality Education Committee, Ministry of Education and certain parent groups have publicly objected to the United Nations’ human rights covenants and conventions because Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations. They also claim that international human rights perspectives may not fit into our local context. They also objected to gender equality education, especially topics on homosexuality in education and sex education at schools. They have specifically asked schools to ban Shall We Swim? These groups pressured the Ministry of Education and asked that “the curriculum of courses related to gender equality education be agreed by representatives of parent groups before reaching a final conclusion,” and “parental agreement is required if schools hire teachers outside of the school to teach courses on gender equality education.” Not all parents had been trained as teachers, and if the Ministry of Education compromises with these parents and let them interfere with teaching, it will profoundly damage teachers’ decision-making power and students’ right to learn.
Since the middle of 2014, some members of the Sixth Gender Equality Education Committee, Ministry of Education have constantly asked the Ministry of Education to send an official letter to all schools “not to use and screen” this film. They further propose that the Ministry of Education revive examination rules on classification and reporting, even holding project meetings because of this and asking the Ministry of Education to draft “Principles on Selection of Assisted Teaching Materials for Elementary and Secondary Schools（draft）.” They wish to put forward regulation stating that, “teachers should exam in detail and review completely before using publications sent for review as supplemental teaching materials to prevent violation of the law (‘The Protection of Children and Youths Welfare and Rights Act,’ ‘Criminal Laws’).”
Article 19 of the “International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)” indicates that everyone has the right to express opinions and enjoys freedom of publication. The General Comment No. 34 on Article 19 indicates that freedom of opinion and speech should be understood based on the universality of human rights and non-discrimination. Article 6 (1) of the “Educational Fundamental Act” rules that: “Education should be based on the principle of neutrality.” In other words, schools in general should not promote or engage in activities for particular political organization(s), and public schools should not promote or engage in activities for particular religious organization(s). Article 8 (l) of the same Act also states that: “The work, pay, and pursue of further education for education professionals should be designated by law, and their professional decision-making power should also be respected.” It is the State’s obligation to ensure that political parties and religion do not interfere with teachers’ professional decision-making power.
The statements and proposals by the Ministry of Education’s Gender Equality Education Committee have violated the freedom of publication and speech protected by the Constitution and reduced teachers’ professional decision-making power. Preliminary censorship on films for the media has long been abandoned by democratic nations, and related rules and regulations in our nation have also been abolished long ago. Taiwan had declared the end of martial law many years ago, and we cannot tolerate the retrogression of democracy. The Committee may help teachers to understand related rules and regulations on the selection of teaching materials through promotion or research and study, rather than warn about violations through legal wording in the draft of principles. Wordings based on non-existent facts. This can induce a chilling effect among teachers. When facing conservative influences, governmental agencies have constantly taken steps back or gone with the flow. This has seriously hindered the progression of education about gender equality, may cause regression on freedom of publication and speech, restrict teachers’ professional decision-making powers, students’ right to education, and the vision to establish friendly campuses in future.
NGO-issued instructional films are protected under freedom of expression in the Constitution. The state should provide the maximum safeguards for this. The Taiwan Gender Education Equity Association (TGEEA) appeal for the following：
Education authorities should not carry out the preliminary censorship of NGO-issued teaching materials that are exempted from censorship.
<li><p>The state should not side with right wing conservative influences to reduce teachers’ professional decision-making powers and suppress teaching on gender equality and professional development.</p></li> <li><p>Parents should participate and make suggestions on school education based on “children’s best interests,” not to carry this to the extreme, nor exceed the foundation that “the state should protect students’ rights on learning, education, body autonomy, and personality development.”</p></li> </ol>Freedom of media coverage and the mediation of police’s exercise power should include citizen reporters
Paragraph 292 of the State Report states that if expulsion is necessary due to illegality or danger, preliminary advice and communication should be reinforced with appeals to the media to cooperate with police measures. Police should also provide necessary media consultation and assistance at the site of demonstrations or rallies. However, during the 2014 Occupy the Legislature Movement, journalists became the target of attacks from the police or unsatisfied masses. Journalists are not only “doing their jobs” when they report on the site of a protest, they also exercise their rights as news media who are reporting. In doing so, the media indirectly allows the general public have their rights on freedom of speech. When the police forced media professionals to leave the site via non-violent persuasion or violent force, they abused the right of media professionals to report and the media’s role as the fourth estate that supervises the government. The police also abused the general public’s right to know. In order to deal with increasing protest activities, Taipei City Police Department announced the “Taipei City Police Department Code of Practice on Executing Assembly, Parade and Media Coordination” ordinance in 2015, stating that they have reached an agreement with Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) and other related organizations after many negotiations. Under the directive the Taipei City Government will establish “press zones” and “opinion expression zones” on protest sites to separate journalists and the protesting public.
However, it has been a long time since open conflict between the protesting public and the police occurred where the police had to disperse protesters or drag them away by force. Such incidents tend to become focus of media shooting, given that every photo journalist wants to get as close to the site of a confrontation as possible to gain more exciting and direct footages. Therefore, the act of establishing a press zone is restriction on journalists rather than protection; it not only restricts their freedom of reporting, but it also creates difficulties for media given the intensity of media competition. Because of criticism and objections toward this measure from all social circles, Taipei City Mayor Wen-Je Ko suggested that “journalists should wear vests” instead. The aforementioned method is mainly for the police to distinguish “journalists” and “protesters,” and to treat them accordingly. However, “The Grand Justice Interpretation No. 689” announced on July 2011 makes the following explanation on the freedom of news reporting: “the freedom of news reporting is protected by the freedom of news. This not only protects the act of reporting performed by journalists who belong to news organizations, but it also protects the act of news reporting performed by the general public for the purpose of providing valuable information and news for the masses, or promoting discussion on public issues in order to supervise the government.” In other words, the freedom of news reporting extended from Article 11 of the Constitution not only protects news organizations and media reporters, but also protects the general public in performing news reporting, covering independent media and citizen reporters. The main point of explanation by the Grand Justice is on the “act” of reporting rather than the “identity” or “profession” of reporting, and certainly has nothing to do with “standpoint.”
We suggest that the police should treat citizen reporters as reporters, and follow the rights on freedom of reporting granted by the Constitution to provide them the same treatment as ordinary media reporters. This can reduce incidents of conflicts during on- site reporting at events.
To deal with the inferior quality of commercial media reporting, the Public Television, operated on public affairs budget, should play the role of being the platform of domestic audio-visual content fund-raising and broadcasting, making sure to protect the rights of media usage for disadvantaged and diverse groups and to balance the public opinion market. The State Report should include chapters on public media. In 2013, the fifth board of directors was unable to be constituted even after three rounds of nomination approval process. Facing the deadlock that had stalled the setup of the fifth board of directors for more than 25 months, the Campaign for Media Reform, the Alliance for Media Reform and organizations concerning the development of the Public Television initiated a series of appealing announcement and protests, to call upon the immediate termination of fierce battle among political parties, in order for the Public Television to normally operated as soon as possible. The Citizen Alliance for Media Reform, scholars and media reform organizations went to the entrance of Executive Yuan to hold a sit-in protest on “the immediate solution for difficulties of Public Television and comprehensively start media reform” for six consecutive days. Then, in order to deal with the unresolved list of the fifth board of directors, “Alliance for Citizens Supervising Public Television” organized and proposed three main requests: first, appeal to the review committee to abandon prejudice from political parties, and uphold the spirit of professionalism and concern for the public to complete the review process as soon as possible; second, appeal to the newly established Public Television Board of Directors to set up a system for citizen participation and self-regulation; third, appeal to the Executive Yuan Department of Culture to promote a revision of the Public Television Law. In addition, the Alliance will hold new conferences on Public Television supervision every six months and continuously provide advice on the enhancement of Public Television and Public Broadcasting.
The Alliance’s supervision report indicates that the quality and viewership rating of the news program on Public Television’s main channel are outstanding. This means that the viewing public in Taiwan increasingly demands quality public broadcasting, especially when important public issues and events occur. Viewers tend to choose Public Television news programs which are diverse, fair and without political bias to watch during these times. However, the management level of Public Television still appears passive and inactive in reaction on how to expand the Public Broadcasting Group and its role of public service. They even positioned the Public Television as a “small and beautiful supplement of commercial television,” limiting itself to a conservative reading of current rules and regulations. Taiwan’s civil society does not expect the Public Television to be merely a supplemental, decorative “little refreshment,” but responsible for maintaining democracy, promoting social progress, educating the general public, ensuring public access to media, establishing rules for media accountability, enhancing the quality on news reporting, expanding resources for the Public Television, and reinforcing the ability of operating teams, including the Board of Directors, to manage. Public Television should not replace program host(s) when dealing with important public affairs or issues related to itself, such as during the Occupy the Legislature Movement or when exchanging ideas with a lack of appropriate judgment toward the complicated political issues between Taiwan and China.
We have the following three suggestions especially for this issue:
The Public Television Board of Directors should openly advocate and actively promote the revision of “Public Television Law,” and related digital stream as well as broadcasting laws to include Taiwan Indigenous Television (TITV) and Hakka Television Station (Hakka TV), gradually returning scarce electromagnetic wavelengths to public service. In addition, it is necessary to integrate Rti, PBS, NER and talents, to include a public broadcasting service into the Public Broadcasting Group while striving for a public film and television fund to increase related budgets.
<li><p>The CTS should be not be merely a de jure member of the PBS group; it should be substantially reformed to be a genuine public TV, in order to respond to appeals made by different stakeholders and civil society.</p></li> <li><p>The cultural policies of the Cultural Department should make empowering the Public Broadcasting Group a priority. It should actively promote the revision of Public Television Law to centralize the currently dispersed public resources. The Cultural Department can empower the Public Broadcasting Group, and let it become a fund-raising and broadcasting platform for domestic audio-visual contents.</p></li> </ol>
- 2015/10/23 “Serious call for the National Police Agency to retain accomplice of literary persecution” announcement