INTERVIEW/Global human rights experts laud Taiwan's transitional justice efforts

Taipei, Dec. 14 (CNA) Two former members of the defunct international human rights organization "Memorial" have commended Taiwan's work in the field of transitional justice, saying that its people's reflections on the issue have been "inspiring."

Nicolas Werth and Alexandra Polivanova, who are now chairperson and representative, respectively, of the International Memorial Association -- the successor to the Nobel Peace Prize winning "Memorial" -- praised Taiwan's transitional justice efforts during a recent visit to the country.

Their visit revolved around activities to mark Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, which included meetings with local NGOs and participation in a series of lectures co-hosted by the National Human Rights Commission and the French Office in Taipei.

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

In an interview with CNA, Werth and Polivanova spoke about their observations during their visits to some of Taiwan's prominent historical exhibitions.

Werth, a French historian specializing in Soviet history, highlighted two permanent exhibitions that he saw at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.

One of the exhibitions was "Taiwan's Long Walk to Freedom of Speech," which chronicles key events from the 1940s to the 1990s. The other was "Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and the Republic of China (Taiwan)," which details the life of Chiang, the ROC's longest-serving president and a figure widely considered to be associated with Taiwan's White Terror Period (1949-1992).

"The juxtaposition of these two is in itself quite remarkable," Werth said.

The plurality of interpretations demonstrates the huge work that Taiwanese society has undertaken to achieve transitional justice, he added.

Meanwhile, Polivanova, a long-standing Russian human rights advocate, shared some of the observations that she made during her visit to the National Human Rights Museum in New Taipei.

At the museum, Polivanova said, she engaged in discussions with a former White Terror Period political prisoner Fred Chin (陳欽生) on the concept of "post-justice."

Polivanova said she also spoke with other Taiwanese visitors at the museum and found their reflections on the Taiwan's past to be "inspiring."

On the guided tour, one visitor raised the question of whether the museum should be preserved in its original state as a detention center for political prisoners or converted into a multimedia display facility to better promote transitional justice education, Polivanova related.

"It's a non-stop question and reflection, and this is very interesting for me -- that it's not like [a] frozen decision," she added.

Lessons to share

Drawing a contrast with Taiwan, Werth said transitional justice never occurred in Russia, even during the early 1990s -- a period often regarded as the freest in modern Russian history, which was marked by political and social openness following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"We really pay the price of it now because nothing has been done -- no education, no critical assessment of the past," said Werth, 74, whose father was from Russia.

Without such historical reflection, "the past can come back," he said, referencing the wars initiated by the Soviet Union in the past and the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, which Russian President Vladimir Putin escalated into a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

While civil society can influence government decisions, the authorities' suppression can occur "pace by pace," Werth said.

Using Russia's experience as reference, civil societies worldwide should be "careful" of restrictive measures, he said.

Expanding on that aspect of Russian history, Polivanova said that although civil society in Russia played a crucial role in pressuring the government to end the first Chechen war in 1996, it has been systematically dismantled over the years.

In 2012, Russian authorities enacted the Foreign Agents Law to "limit the possibility of civil rights organizations to collaborate with the world," she said.

Another law targeting "non-desirable organizations" was also imposed to further crack down on civil society in Russia, including the now-disbanded international human rights organization "Memorial," Polivanova said.

Established in Russia in 1987 during the fall of the Soviet Union, "Memorial" researched political repressions in both the Soviet Union era and modern Russia and promoted human rights, before being shut down by the Russian government in December 2021 under the country's Foreign Agent Law.

The International Memorial Association was founded in 2023 to continue the study of political repression in the USSR and present-day Russia and to promote moral and legal rehabilitation of persons subjected to such repression.

According to the association, there are currently about 1,400 political prisoners in Russia, including members of various civil groups. It says that approximately 20,000 people were arrested during anti-war demonstrations in Russia in 2022 and 2023.

Polivanova, who left her homeland last summer and is now based in Poland, said that supporting Ukraine can be a means of supporting Russian civil society, as the eastern European country is now the main force confronting Putin's regime.

She also called on democratic countries to raise awareness about political prisoners in Russia.

Human rights crimes are made possible largely because "they are somehow hidden," Polivanova said.