TAIPEI – Taiwan’s jailed former president ended a 16-day hunger strike on Thursday, a prison official said, a day after Taiwanese newspapers published a poem in which he hinted he was willing to die for his pro-independence views.
Lee Ta-chu, deputy head of Tucheng Jail in suburban Taipei, said Chen Shui-bian ate a small portion of porridge shortly after noon.
Officials at Chen’s office were not available for comment. But those close to the former president have consistently tried to persuade him to end the hunger strike to preserve his energy for what is expected to be a long legal battle. Doctors persuaded him to eat after he complained of an upset stomach.
Chen was jailed on Nov 12, after a three-judge panel ordered him held while prosecutors pursued graft allegations against him.
Chen has consistently denied the allegations against him, which include money laundering, looting a special presidential fund and accepting bribes.
Chen said he began his hunger strike to highlight claims that the newly installed government of President Ma Ying-jeou was persecuting him for his anti-China views.
Chen is a strong advocate of formal independence for Taiwan, while Ma favors greater engagement with the communist mainland, from which Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
Chen’s poem, a seven-verse, 42-line opus in Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese dialect, was initially released by Chen’s office late on Tuesday. It focused on Chen’s love for former first lady Wu Shu-chen and his pronounced anti-China views.
‘The ambition to establish an independent country is hung in midair,’ he wrote. ‘If I cannot walk out of the jail standing straight, I will die on the cross of Taiwanese history.’ Under Taiwanese law, Chen can be held up to four months without indictment to prevent him from colluding with alleged conspirators.
He left office after eight years in May because of term limits. -- AP
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Chen Ends Hunger Strike
27 November 2008
TAIPEI – Taiwan’s jailed former president ended a 16-day hunger strike on Thursday, a prison official said, a day after Taiwanese newspapers published a poem in which he hinted he was willing to die for his pro-independence views.
Lee Ta-chu, deputy head of Tucheng Jail in suburban Taipei, said Chen Shui-bian ate a small portion of porridge shortly after noon.
Officials at Chen’s office were not available for comment. But those close to the former president have consistently tried to persuade him to end the hunger strike to preserve his energy for what is expected to be a long legal battle. Doctors persuaded him to eat after he complained of an upset stomach.
Chen was jailed on Nov 12, after a three-judge panel ordered him held while prosecutors pursued graft allegations against him.
Chen has consistently denied the allegations against him, which include money laundering, looting a special presidential fund and accepting bribes.
Chen said he began his hunger strike to highlight claims that the newly installed government of President Ma Ying-jeou was persecuting him for his anti-China views.
Chen is a strong advocate of formal independence for Taiwan, while Ma favors greater engagement with the communist mainland, from which Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949.
Chen’s poem, a seven-verse, 42-line opus in Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese dialect, was initially released by Chen’s office late on Tuesday. It focused on Chen’s love for former first lady Wu Shu-chen and his pronounced anti-China views.
‘The ambition to establish an independent country is hung in midair,’ he wrote. ‘If I cannot walk out of the jail standing straight, I will die on the cross of Taiwanese history.’ Under Taiwanese law, Chen can be held up to four months without indictment to prevent him from colluding with alleged conspirators.
He left office after eight years in May because of term limits. -- AP
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