Taiwan's jailed former president on hunger strike

[November 13, 2008]  TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) -- Jailed former Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian has begun a hunger strike to protest his arrest and highlight his claim that he is being persecuted by his successors, his lawyer said Thursday.

Chen, who is under investigation for alleged graft, was taken to Tucheng jail in suburban Taipei early Wednesday after a marathon court hearing concluded there was enough evidence to hold him for up to four months to prevent him from colluding with alleged co-conspirators.

Chen has not been officially charged in the case. He has denied all wrongdoing, and claims he is the victim of the new Nationalist government's efforts to placate the Beijing leadership. Chen is a strong advocate of Taiwanese independence and opposes the Nationalist policy of forging closer ties with China, from which Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.

Lawyer Cheng Wen-lung, who visited the jail Thursday morning, said his client wants "to protest the death of justice and the regression of democracy."

Speaking to reporters after the visit, Cheng said Chen had not eaten since arriving there more than 24 hours earlier and insisted he is determined to continue his hunger strike.

"He opposed the authoritarian (Nationalist) regime in Taiwan and the Communist regime (in China) and he wants sovereignty for Taiwan," Cheng added.

Corrections official Lee Ta-chu said his institution "is monitoring (Chen's) situation closely." He did not elaborate.

Taiwan's current Nationalist president, Ma Ying-jeou, swept to victory in March elections, partly on a promise to expand economic ties with the mainland and begin a political dialogue aimed at ending nearly 60 years of tensions across the 100-mile-wide Taiwan Strait.

But long-standing corruption allegations against Chen, his family, and inner circle also played a big role in the Nationalist victory.

Chen ended eight years in office in May. Since then, he has been unstinting in his criticism of the Nationalists' China policy and their alleged persecution of former officials connected to his administration.

Nine other people, including a former vice premier and a former intelligence chief, are being held in connection with the same graft allegations mounted against Chen.

In August, Chen admitted that he broke the law by not fully disclosing campaign donations he had received, after a Nationalist lawmaker alleged that Chen's son and daughter-in-law moved millions of dollars to Switzerland in 2007 and then forwarded the funds to the Cayman Islands.

At the time prosecutors said they wanted to determine whether the funds were indeed donations left over from political campaigns -- as Chen insisted -- or whether bribery may have been involved.

[Associated Press]

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