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Friday, October 28, 2011

MAJOR: Another attack on press freedom??

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Freedom House picked this up last week via the Taipei Times:
Lin Chauyi, a reporter at the internet news outlet New Talk and head of the Association of Taiwanese Journalists (ATJ), was sued by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) whip and legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang for defamation on October 14. Lin had written an article on September 2 about Hsieh's "political interference" in a controversial cable television deal. According to the report, the legislator had met members of Taiwan's National Communications Commission before it held a September 6 public hearing, and pressured them to approve Want Want Broadband's bid to purchase China Network Systems (CNS), Taiwan's second-largest cable television provider. Want Want Broadband is a subsidiary of Want Want Group, which is known for its friendly relations with the Chinese government and state-run media outlets (see CMB No. 34), raising concerns that its acquisition of CNS would limit Taiwanese viewers' access to diverse television content. At the plaintiff's request, Lin faced a provisional seizure of NT$2.5 million (US$82,600), which was approved by the Taipei district court; one-third of his monthly salary will be withheld until the amount is covered. After other media outlets and civil society groups, including Want Want–owned China Times and the ATJ, condemned Hsieh for violating press freedom, Hsieh said on October 19 that he would settle the lawsuit if the reporter admitted "that he failed to carry out a thorough verification of the information." Immediately after Hsieh's statement, New Talk said its fact-based investigation was "open to public scrutiny." It added that Hsieh had requested provisional seizure of assets from both Lin and New Talk chairman Su Chengping, for a total amount of NT$5 million (US$165,300), though only the request regarding Lin has thus far been approved.
Let's see that on the instant replay:
1. News report says legislator pressured National Communications Commission (originally erected to be a KMT end run around the GIO during Chen Administration) to approve WantWant's purchase of CNS. WantWant, though Taiwan-owned, is a rabid supporter of Beijing (Newtalk's report in Chinese says Hsieh pressured the NCC twice).
2. Legislator (KMT whip, not some nobody) sues reporter who is also the head of the Association of Taiwanese Journalists for defamation for reporting this. Is this a game of "let's send a signal to journalists"?
3. Legislator requests, and the court (incredibly and rarely) grants, that the journalist's salary be docked 1/3 until $82,500 US dollars is paid off before the freakin' trial. Not just a lawsuit, but also an attack on the journalists ability to support himself and his family. Is this a game of "let's send a signal to journalists"?
4. Even WantWant owned media protests this apparent assault on press freedom.
Newtalk (please go here and read the whole excellent analysis) points out that this lawsuit looks like a clear violation of UN press freedoms. Defamation remains a criminal act in Taiwan -- recall that President Chen Shui-bian did eight months for libeling Elmer Fung during the martial law period. Newtalk argues that having signed the international covenants on rights, the government is now subject to their stipulations....
Citizens and news workers might have anticipated that the question of decriminalization of libel might have been raised in the wake of the incorporation into our domestic law of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights effective December 10, 2009.

However, Article 310 and the question of whether defamation should be decriminalized have not been included in the review of Taiwan`s legal code and administrative regulations now being conducted under the auspices of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Human Rights chaired by Vice President Vincent Siew.

Part of the reason for this omission may be the fact that Taiwan`s Constitutional Court found in its Interpretation No. 507 of July 7, 2000 that Article 310 does not violate the constitutional right of freedom of speech in Article 11 on the grounds that the criminalization of defamation is "a necessary countermeasure" to "protect individual legal interests" and "to prevent the infringement of the freedom and rights of other persons."

The Constitution Court determined that "if the law allowed anyone to avoid penalty for defamation by offering monetary compensation, it would be tantamount to issuing them a license to defame."
Newtalk further notes:
Specifically, Article 47 mandates that "defamation laws must be crafted with care to ensure...that they do not serve, in practice, to stifle freedom of expression."

Moreover, the HRC`s interpretation mandates that "states parties should consider the decriminalization of defamation and, in any case, the application of the criminal law should only be countenanced in the most serious of cases and imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty."

In addition, Article 47 stated that "at least with regard to comments about public figures, consideration should be given to avoiding penalizing or otherwise rendering unlawful untrue statements that have been published in error but without malice" and that "a public interest in the subject matter of the criticism should be recognized as a defence" and adds that "care should be taken by States parties to avoid excessively punitive measures and penalties."
The Association of Taiwanese Journalists has a response up on their website. TT reported that ATJ said:
In a statement issued on Tuesday night, the association said that while anyone mentioned in a news report may make a response to that report, no one should threaten journalists through lawsuits or provisional seizure measures “which may frighten individual journalists, leading to violation of freedom of speech and a shrinking freedom of the press.”
Worth observing: the original article included balancing information from Hsieh's assistant denying the claim that Hsieh had pressured the NCC.

Keep in the mind that the furor over press freedom in this case should not obscure the fact that this is fallout from a more important issue, the KMT's apparent enablement of China's relentless assault on Taiwan's media freedom and diversity. Let's not forget which party regularly eulogizes Singapore as an example of how things should be run.
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13 comments:

  1. Michael,
    Legislator actions like this are often actions on their own. To say it is related with any KMT or China influence, one really needs more evidence. Friends of mine have encountered issues of these type from various parties varying from employment of personnel to financial support for political activities.

    I do however agree that no media organization should become dominant position.

    George

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  2. RE: "Daily Link" no. 2…

    Yo, Denny Roy! It shouldn't be up to Beijing to "let" Taiwan do anything. You might as well "call for" Beijing to "stop being Chinese." What you call "effective veto power," I call "economic terrorism." It's up to the international community to stop appeasing Beijing!


    Tim Maddog

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  3. Ignoring over six decades of historical evidence, "George" said, "[…] one really needs more evidence […]"

    LOL

    Tim Maddog

    ReplyDelete
  4. The problem is that there are unethical legislators as well as journalists. So for each specific case, I personally would hesitate to make judgement based on news and gossip. Historical issues cannot apply to specific cases at hand. What always occurs is that whomever thing they have more power, there will certainly be people in that field whom will abuse it.

    I am sure if the journalist has enough evidence at hand, when the case is finished, he should reasonably have the right to claim damages as well. This is where the union should come in and help.

    George

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  5. George --

    I think you are missing the key point here. The issue isn't an unethical legislator, but the context in which he operates: the fact that defamation is a criminal act, against the recommendations of international journalistic organizations and the UN. Thus when some KMT legislator (almost always a KMTer, very seldom a DPPer) moves under this law, because he is able to use this law, it is a threat to free speech for the entire nation. That is why even the China Times -- owned by WantWant -- saw this as an attack on all journalists.

    Stop treating this as an individual thing. It's not. There are important structural features -- a member of an authoritarian party that hates press freedom and has a long history of opposing it, exploiting a legal framework meant to curb press freedom. The message is obvious, even if Hsieh only intends to send a "don't mess with me" message, he is sending it to the entire system.

    The KMT controls the legislature and can get rid of these laws any time it likes. It doesn't. What does that tell you?

    Michael

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  6. Michael,
    Is this just your thinking? Or is it based on hard evidence? If it's based one actual interact with high level KMT officials, then you might have a point. However, based on my experience and experience from my friends, actions of these type are not organized on a large scale, probably just a small group of individuals. The scale of coordination you are suggesting is about on the same scale as saying that man did not really set foot on the moon.

    What I know about the media, there certainly is lots of speculation, and there are also cases where the media threaten to tell bad stories if an organization does not give them a story to their satisfaction. Since I have friends that have been on either side of the issue, I am comfortable with my understanding, and thing we may never get involved enough in each individual case to know the truth.

    George

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  7. One specific example in a company that I worked. Someone from the news media calls in and asks about a certain business, when "public relations" responded that they had no news to release, the media said: "give us something, or we will write what we think, which may not be in your interest". This happens more often with Government owned companies because they know it creates a hassle in the company if they report something that is incorrect.

    I have seen good and bad relationships with the media, but I really do think that journalists need to study more in the fields they specialize in. Very few do.

    Freedom of press does not mean you can openly accuse someone of doing something without substantial information leading to that accusation. Sure, people like 邱毅 (did I get that right) likes blowing the whistle, and there are instances when he had to pay for it(yes, he has been to jail). This journalist is facing a similar situation, and whether or not he can get by it depends on the information sources he has on hand.

    George

    ReplyDelete
  8. George, I know perfectly well how the media operates here. Unethical behavior by the media here does not mean that legislators can stage assaults on the press via intimidation using a legal framework that is a leftover from the martial law era.

    The scale of coordination you are suggesting is about on the same scale as saying that man did not really set foot on the moon.

    Nobody suggested "coordination". I have no idea where this comment came from.

    Rather, I focused, as has the analysis from several quarters -- including, once again, the China Times -- on the legal structures that enable individual legislators and other powerful figures to suppress the freedom of the press through the use of lawsuits and similar intimidation tactics. Huge difference. Hope this is clear now.

    Michael

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  9. It's up to the international community to stop appeasing Beijing!

    ROFL. You notice how Roy addressed Beijing rather than the international community. Had he done the latter, well, Beijing might have counted it against him for "internationalizing" a "domestic" issue.

    Michael

    ReplyDelete
  10. George's comments (your examples are always interesting!) at least suggest that this kind of law might still exist because a number of people think it's necessary. The same thing came up in the discussion about the restaurant blogger who got sued. That seemed like the most ridiculous case in the world (well, it still seems pretty ridiculous), but then there were quite a few voices who felt like the law made sense, saying that bloggers (reporters) needed to be constrained.

    George -- even you would have to admit that the seizure of assets (before Hsieh kindly dropped that request) suggests that the judiciary here isn't able to handle this kind of law appropriately. Or even that the judge was doing what the legislator wanted him to do. Because if you look at the original article (if it's the one Michael linked to), it really doesn't say anything outrageous.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I would be very much interested to see if anyone can point out specific law that give legislators more power than the ordinary individual under similar circumstances. If an action is legible for criminal charges, then that is actually the most cost efficient way of handling it. Just recently I also might have used that route, however, I told the police that if they could handle it in a more pleasant manner, the would be my preference. They did a good job.

    In practice, even legislators need the media to give them visibility. So most would be careful how they handle situations.

    George

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  12. D,
    In my understanding, any request for seizure of assets normally cannot be carried out in criminal court until convicted; and maybe not even in a criminal court altogether. Seizure of assets would not normally be carried out in a civil court to ensure that the defendant has something in his name to pay for damages. In a civil court, this can be common. But not in criminal court. So I think there must be some misunderstanding somewhere.

    George

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  13. BTW,
    Any criminal charges must first go through Prosecutor investigation. Looking at the time frame of the incident, I do not see how the Prosecutor could have concluded anything. To know what truly went on, you really need to talk to the Prosecutor. I wonder, is this another case of media not doing their homework properly since there is no mention of the Prosecutor actions?

    Sorry guys, having done lots of review and auditing work in the past, I tend to look for the missing links.

    George

    ReplyDelete

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