It is a personal vendetta.Yu Shyi-kung, chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party, was misquoted by the China Times on September 15 last year.The respected local vernacular reported he called Shih Ming-teh's Redshirts “Chinese pigs.”He considered he was maliciously accused of making remarks that raised tensions between native-born islanders and mainlander Chinese emigrants to Taiwan after 1945 as well as their Taiwanese-born offspring.So he is suing the paper for defamation.Incidentally, the Redshirts laid siege to the Office of the President twice on September 15 and October 10, demanding Chen Shui-bian step down as president of the republic.
Yu filed the complaints with the Taipei district court on the day the Chinese-language daily published the misquoted story.It later apologized, but he refused to drop the case, and right after the first trial hearing at the end of last month, declared the ruling party would hereafter deny the China Times access for coverage.He called it a mouthpiece of the Kuomintang and urged the public to read only DPP papers to learn of the news about his party.
Long dissatisfied with its coverage of the governing party, Yu lashed out against the China Times in retaliation.In the process, however, he has encroached on freedom of the press, which is guaranteed in Taiwan by the Constitution.
The DPP chairman must be reminded that freedom of the press is the right to publish facts, ideas, and opinions without interference from the government or from private groups.The right applies to the printed media, including books and newspapers, and the electronic media, including radio and television.He may disagree with what the local vernacular paper printed or suspect it threatens to injure his reputation – and for that reason he certainly is perfectly free to seek redress by suing it – but he cannot and should not forbid it to cover his party, a private group turned by government subsidization into an institution that is open to coverage by each and every member of the press.The ruling party receives a government subsidy of NT$170 million a year.
After all, Taiwan is a democracy, where freedom of the press is vitally necessary.Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.The people need information to help them determine the best political and social policies.Democratic governments need to know what most people believe and want.The governments also need to know the opinions of various minorities.
Only undemocratic governments deny freedom of the press.To appear as a democracy, the government under President Chiang Kai-shek did not dare deny two newspapers, the Kung Lun Pao and the Independence Evening News, access to his Kuomintang, though he closed Free China weekly in 1972 and had its publisher Lei Chen arrested and convicted of treason.Lei Chen was sentenced to 10 years in prison for ridiculing Chiang's avowed counteroffensive against China and opposing his reelection to a third term.
The Kung Lun Pao went under, not because of censorship or official persecution, while Chiang Kai-shek was still alive.The Independence Evening News succumbed to mortally keen competition with other papers only a few years ago.Lei Chen, after death, was lauded by President Chen and his ruling DPP as the champion during Chiang's long rule for freedom of the press they promise to uphold in the party charter.
Perhaps Yu thinks his party's boycott of one single media outlet does not constitute an act of violation of freedom of the press.But it is not an isolated case.A few years back, President Chen's National Security Bureau organized a raid on the Today magazine in Taipei to seize hundreds of thousands of copies of an issue exposing its slush fund, which was spent for the conduct of secret diplomacy.This worst form of pre-publication censorship was followed by attempts on the part of the Government Information Office to gag the TVBS cable TV network under the pretext that it was owned fully by a Hong Kong company.The TV channel offers two talk shows highly critical of the administration as well as the ruling party.
The fact, however, is that Yu was not as hateful of the China Times as he is now, while he was consecutively vice premier, secretary-general to the president, and premier. He turned vengeful only after he became chairman of the ruling party at the end of 2005.That coincided with the advent of a spate of corruption scandals involving President Chen, his family and his close aides.The first to fall is his former deputy secretary-general Chen Che-nan convicted of corruption.First son-in-law Chao Chien-ming followed, proven guilty of insider trading and sentenced to six years in prison.First lady Wu Shu-chen is standing trial for corruption in connection with the misuse of her husband's state affairs fund.President Chen, who claimed part of the fund was spent for his personal secret diplomacy, was not indicted for he enjoys immunity from prosecution but regarded as an unindicted co-defendant together with his wife.
The China Times has covered all these events faithfully, probably to the chagrin of the DPP chairman, who is fiercely loyal to the president.It is possible that Yu simply could not tolerate his master and the first family being exposed as they are.Then it isn't a personal vendetta for himself but on behalf of President Chen.
In the meantime, the China Times has all but no way to seek a redress of Yu's unwarranted, retaliatory boycott in violation of freedom of the press.Of course, the paper can print whatever news it considers fit to publish about the ruling party without confirmation.Or it can completely black out the ruling party.But it cannot do either as a responsible member of the press.
As the last resort, the China Times may be forced to go all the way to the Council of Grand Justices to ask for an interpretation of Article 11 of the Constitution that alone may compel the DPP chairman to lift the boycott.
（本文刊載於96.01.01 China Post第4版，本文代表作者個人意見）