Taiwan's human rights commissioner touts nation's progress on Human Rights Day

Taipei, Dec. 10 (CNA) Taiwan has transformed from an "oppressed" country to one that promotes human rights, said Taiwan's National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) Chairperson Chen Chu (陳菊) at an event in Taipei on Tuesday.

In her opening speech for a lecture series co-hosted by the NHRC and the French Office in Taipei to mark the United Nations' Human Rights Day, Chen said that Taiwan endured 38 years of martial law and achieved democratic transformation through generations of effort by Taiwanese supported by "international democratic forces."

"Taiwan has transformed from a country once oppressed and reliant on [foreign countries'] attention in terms of human rights to one that now actively pursues and shares them," Chen said.

Chen was arrested alongside other activists during the Kaohsiung Incident, which began with a pro-democracy rally held in the southern Taiwanese city on Human Rights Day 45 years ago.

The rally prompted Taiwan's then-authoritarian Kuomintang (KMT) government to crack down on dissidents, sparking widespread support for political reform and human rights that led to Taiwan's democratization beginning in the 1980s.

The NHRC head cited examples of Taiwan's achievements in advancing human rights, including becoming in 2019 the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, ranking first in Asia in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2023 Democracy Index, and providing humanitarian aid overseas in recent years.

Chen suggested that Memorial, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning human rights organization founded in Russia during the fall of the Soviet Union, "will inspire and provide strength to Taiwan's transitional justice and historical education."

Two invited speakers from International Memorial Association, Nicolas Werth and Alexandra Polivanova, will join a series of public lectures, campus talks, and meetings with local NGOs during their trip in Taiwan.

In her remarks on Tuesday, Polivanova recounted the history of Memorial and its ongoing work both within and beyond Russia, even after the organization was shut down by the Russian government in December 2021 after running afoul of the country's Foreign Agent Law.

Werth also shared his observations as a French historian on the "new Russian national narrative" that emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union, particularly during the "Putin period" from 2000 to the present, which he described as a contributing factor to the invasion of Ukraine.