Fair Trial

Free speech and baby eels

Weeks before the start of a sedition trial of seven political opponents of Taiwan's one-party regime, human rights activists predicted that the hearing would be a travesty of justice. Leading U.S. law professors, scholars and writers fired off protests and pleas for leniency to Taiwanese President Chiang Ching-kuo. Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark denounced the "brutal use of martial law."

Yet when proceedings began last week, it turned out to be the most open and, thus far, the fairest trial before a military court to take place in Taiwan's judicial history. Overriding conservative opposition in his government, President Chiang took the unusual step of opening the trial to the press, to the defendants' families and to two representatives of Amnesty International, the London-based human rights organization. Also present were two observers from the American Institute in Taiwan, the organization that has unofficially represented the U.S. on the island since Washington recognized Peking as the legitimate government of China 15 months ago.

Last week's proceedings bore little resemblance to previous sedition trials in Taiwan, which had been summary affairs, consisting of a reading of the charges, followed inevitably by a verdict of guilty. This time the defendants were represented by a team of able defense lawyers. The chief of the five-member panel of military judges gave the accused ample opportunity to refute charges that they had attempted to overthrow the government with the help of subversive organizations abroad. Some defendants eloquently expressed their aspirations for democratic reform in Taiwan. The island's many daily newspapers were permitted to publish the defendants' speeches in detailed and uncensored accounts of each day's proceedings. As a result, Taiwan's 17 million citizens have been able to read far more open criticism of the ruling Kuomintang regime than is ordinarily permitted. Observed one Chinese intellectual: "The trial is less a real legal proceeding than an unprecedented political debate."

The charges against the defendants stem from their association with Formosa, a now banned magazine that had called for representative elections, free speech and an end to martial law, which was imposed in 1948 as an anti-Communist measure. Moreover, Formosa had been sympathetic to the aspirations of native Taiwanese who desire a greater voice in the island's government, which has been dominated for three decades by mainland Chinese in the Kuomintang Party.

Formosa was tolerated for several months by the authorities and even allowed to hold about a dozen indoor rallies in various cities across the island. But the magazine was banned in a sweeping crackdown against the opposition last December. The crunch came when Formosa 's leaders organized a rally in the city of Kaohsiung. The rally turned into the bloodiest riot in two decades; 183 policemen were reported injured.

Still, the prosecution's evidence at the trial appeared weak as it tried to prove that defendants, under the cover of Formosa, had intentionally provoked violence in Kaohsiung as part of a long-range plan to overthrow the government. Formosa 's publisher, Huang Hsin-chieh, 52, was specifically charged with attempting to smuggle $14,000 worth of baby eels from the mainland for the purpose of financing seditious activities. Huang denied being an eel trafficker, and convincingly argued that his only goal as Formosa 's publisher was to build a legitimate opposition party in Taiwan whose function would be to "spur the government to improve."

The trial, which is expected to end this week, revealed the unsavory police methods that have been used on the island. For example, Huang told how interrogators had extracted a false confession from him by keeping him awake for 50 to 60 hours at a stretch. Whether Huang and his co-defendants are found guilty or not, that disclosure of psychological torture was likely to linger in the memory of would-be dissidents in Taiwan.

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