December 26, 2020
December 19, 2020 marks the 24th anniversary of the start of the persecution of Tai Ji Men. The main culprit for the persecution is Hou Kuan-jen, who is now the deputy director-general of the Agency Against Corruption. How did Hou initiated the persecution against Tai Ji Men, which has lasted for 24 years? How did he handle the case? And why did he get promoted again and again to his current position?
In 1996, the Taiwan government started a religious crackdown, and Tai Ji Men was caught in the crossfire. In November, the Kaohsiung and Hsinchu prosecutors offices received false reports at the same time. After investigations, they found nothing illegal about Tai Ji Men and closed their cases. On December 19 of the same year, prosecutor Hou Kuan-jen of the Taipei District Prosecutors office led hundreds of prosecutors, investigators, and police with loaded guns to conduct simultaneous searches of the 12 chapters of Tai Ji Men across Taiwan and seven residences of Tai Ji Men disciples. Prosecutor Hou used several tactics in his investigation of the Tai Ji Men case.
Tactic # 1: Threatening detainees with the safety of their family members, forcing the detainees to violate their conscience to testify against the leader of Tai Ji Men
When no one accused her and there was no evidence against her, Peng Li-juan, a Tai Ji Men dizi, was searched with no justified reason. Then she was taken to the city investigation office for interrogation. From 8 a.m. until 12:00 a.m. the next day, Prosecutor Hou had been pressuring and inducing Peng to accuse her master and frequently pounded on the table and yelled at her. However, Peng was unwilling to cooperate with the prosecutor to make false statements against her conscience. She was immediately detained for 40 days and not allowed to see any visitor. At that time, her child was only seven months old and her mother-in-law needed her assistance to get around the house. Although she cried and begged the prosecutor and investigator, she was still held in custody, and her family was not informed, which was against the law. Her family was very worried. Not until a week later, when her school sent a letter to the prosecutor and investigator, did they know that she had been detained.
Likewise, with no one accusing him and no evidence against him, Tai Ji Men dizi Chen Tiao Hsin was detained without any justified reason. In order to obtain false confessions against Dr. Hong, Prosecutor Hou summoned Chen's wife, Wang Yunying as a related party, who served as an editor in the Ministry of Justice at the time, and illegally detained Wang in the detention room for prisoners, and deliberately brought Chen to witness his wife's being held in the detention room, threatening Chen to make false accusations against Dr. Hong on the grounds that his wife would be detained and his daughters would be left unattended. That made Chen suffer from emotional entanglements and struggles. Nevertheless, Chen refused to make false accusations. Hou angrily said to him, “You don't have enough compassion even though you have been seeking self-betterment. Even when your wife is about to be detained, you still don't do anything to save her.” Hou also threatened Chen by saying, “not to be a tragic hero” and said that if Chen continued refusing to “tell the truth,” his wife's salary would be halved and thus no one would be available to take care of their two daughters. Refusing to make false accusations, Chen was detained for another two months until the day he was transferred to court, and the judge released him on bail. Hou also deliberately leaked the news of Wang Yunying's being subpoenaed to the media, causing Wang to be criticized by her supervisors and colleagues in the Ministry of Justice, and Wang was forced to retire early.
Tactic # 2: Creating a chilling effect:
On the day the case broke out, the dizi who happened to be at Tai Ji Men were taken to a field office of the Bureau of Investigation for interrogation. Some even endured inhumane prolonged interrogation that lasted over 24 hours. On December 20, Tai Ji Men dizi Hsiu-chen Wen and Cheng-wen Li were interviewed by the media and shared their improvement in mental and physical health through practicing Tai Ji Men qigong. Three days later on the morning of Christmas Eve, the residences of five Tai Ji Men dizi – Hsiu-chen Wen, Cheng-wen Li, Wan-ting Chang, as well as the aforementioned Tiao-hsin Chen and Li-chuan Peng – were searched at the command of Hou Kuan-jen without any existing accusation from anyone and without any criminal evidence. These five dizi were also taken to the Bureau of Investigation for interrogation.
During the investigation, prosecutor Hou even ordered investigators to go to elementary schools with the intention of taking away some students, who were Tai Ji Men dizi’s children, so as to intimidate their parents. Hou even said that he would arrest 200 more people, and continued to illegally searched Tai Ji Men dizi’s residences, threatening them not to tell the truth, trying to create a chilling effect. That was like the return of the white terror.
Tactic # 3:Deliberately making inaccurate transcripts
In addition to deliberately failing to remove the handcuffs from Dr. Hong’s hands during the court hearing, Hou also engaged in inappropriate behavior, such as pounding on the desk, threatening, coercing, and cursing. When Dr. Hong said the transcript was wrong and requested that the transcript be corrected, Hou only corrected one mistake and refused to correct the rest, shouting even louder and throwing documents at Dr. Hong. Afterwards, the parties requested access to the court recordings (which were not yet videotaped at that time), but many of the court dates were lost and could not be accessed.
In addition, when no one accused Peng Li-juan of any crime, Hou detained her for 40 days. After 28 days in custody, Peng was summoned for the first time. The first thing Hou said to her was: "I know you are innocent.” Hou took advantage of Peng's yearning for her young son and her desire for reunion when the Lunar New Year was approaching, and lured her to make false statements in exchange for bail. However, Peng did not want to cooperate. Hou asked questions and then answered the questions himself during the investigation, and included false information in the transcript, which seriously violated the law and involved forgery of documents.
Tactic # 4: Shooting arrows first and then drawing targets
Hou Kuan-jen brought charges on April 15, 1997. On the 16th, he released the indictment to the media. On the morning of 17th, he ordered investigators to search for evidence in Tai Ji Men. On the afternoon of 17th, he asked the leader of Tai Ji Men for the first time whether he was "raising goblins." The leader replied, "No." Obviously, shooting arrows first and then drawing targets is a serious violation of the Constitution. What's even more outrageous is that the peach wood sword, which is used to get rid of demons in folklore, is falsely accused of being the evidence of raising goblins. That seriously violated the principle of scientific investigation.
Hou violated due process of law at the very beginning. He did not interrogate Dr. Hong or conduct an on-site investigation. He deliberately wrote in the indictment "raising goblins," which was fabricated by him and violated scientific evidence. He falsely accused the decent Academy as an evil religious group and stigmatized Tai Ji Men master and disciples! After that, he said in an exclusive TV interview that he saw a shadow in the defendant's eyes and concluded that he was raising goblins.
For fear that the accusation of fraud would not stand, Hou slandered Dr. Hong with "raising goblins" and then falsely accused him of tax evasion. Six days before the indictment, Shih Yue-sheng, a tax officer who had never been to Tai Ji Men for substantive investigation, was summoned to give false testimony. Moreover, in response to the false accusations by the tax officer, Hou did not give Dr. Hong any chance to defend himself, and he directly indicted Dr. Hong, using the tax officer’s false testimony as the only evidence of Dr. Hong’s alleged violation of the Tax Collection Act.
Tactic # 5: Using the media to manipulate public opinion and smear innocent people
According to Article 245 of the Criminal Procedure Act, prosecutors and other law enforcement personnel should abide by the "principle of non-disclosure of information obtained in the course of investigations." It is also clearly pointed out in the "guidelines for non-disclosure of information obtained in the course of investigations" in order to protect the reputation, privacy and safety of defendants, suspects, victims or other litigants, and to ensure the defendant's right to a fair trial, so as to implement the principle of presumption of innocence, ensure a smooth investigation procedure, and discover the truth. Keeping the investigation secret refers to all investigation activities, procedures, plans, materials, evidence and testimonies obtained during the period from the beginning to the end of the investigation, cannot be heard and known by irrelevant persons according to law.
However, compared with Hou Kuan-jen's investigating process of the Tai Ji Men case, it can be described as an "investigation that is open to the public." He brought journalists with him when conducting searches, and from time to time released information through the media, navigating public opinion, and attempting to manipulate the fairness of the trial.
On December 19, 1996, Hou took journalists with him when he led the search of Tai Ji Men and Tai Ji Men dizi’s residences. The news of the search was broadcast that evening, claiming that religious fraud was involved. The next day, the search made the front pages of major newspapers. Hou used public opinion to judge Tai Ji Men before the trial. During the four month investigation period, there were more than 400 false reports (3-4 per day on average), which caused the public’s great misunderstanding of Tai Ji Men. That was an attempt to use the media to stigmatize Tai Ji Men. As a result, some Tai Ji Men dizi broke up with their family members, were forced to resign from their companies, or died of depression; one of them lost his job with a monthly salary of NT$200,000, and his whole family lost their financial resources.
Tactic # 6: Freezing assets
On the fourth day of the Tai Ji Men incident, all assets of the Shifu and his wife were successively frozen, regardless of when the assets were acquired and whether they are related to this case. All of the assets were frozen with nothing left to pay for basic livelihood and their children's education. They were seriously deprived of their basic right to subsistence.
Tactic # 7: Fabricating victims
According to common sense and investigation procedures, usually a self-help association of victims is set up first before prosecutors intervene and investigate. However, in the Tai Ji Men case, the self-help association was conjured up by Prosecutor Hou through the media. He misled the public by claiming that joining the self-help association would enable them to obtain damages. On December 25, 1996, he broke the law and publicly urged the establishment of a self-help association through the media, saying, “The victims are advised to register as soon as possible to safeguard their rights and interests.” Through monetary enticement, he created a false impression that a lot of people were victimized in this case.
Tactic # 8: Attempting to cut off water and electricity to Tai Ji Men and to shut it down
After indictment, this case was transferred to the district court on April 18, 1997, and thus the matter was placed entirely under the jurisdiction of the court. On April 25, however, Hou Kuan-jen went beyond his authority and issued a letter in his own name to the Ministry of the Interior to request the dissolution of Tai Ji Men. On May 21, he issued letters with the same contents to eight county and city governments in Taiwan to “order” the dissolution of Tai Ji Men. On June 18, he issued letters again to the Public Works Department of Taipei City Government and of Taipei County Government, directly demanding them to cut off water and electricity supply to Tai Ji Men. He issued one letter after another, attempting to shut down the chapters of Tai Ji Men.
In 2002, the Control Yuan proactively investigated this matter to fulfill its duty as one of the five powers of the government and identified eight major violations of law by Hou Kuan-jen in his investigation of the Tai Ji Men case, including violation of the requirement that investigation should not be disclosed, illegal searches, illegal freezing of assets, exceeding his authority to order county and city governments to shut down the chapters of Tai Ji Men, etc. The Control Yuan sent a letter to the Ministry of Justice, demanding it to punish Hou severely in accordance with the law. In 2005, the Control Yuan even included this case as one of the major human rights protection cases. It also confirmed that contradictions existed between the indictment and evidence, and the prosecution on such basis violated evidentiary rules. By law, the prosecution should not have been brought against Dr. Hong. When Hou was investigated by the Control Yuan, he also admitted that he only relied on the one-sided statements of the witnesses and did not investigate them, so the indictment was not valid and could not be used as a basis for taxation.
However, in the indictment, Hou identified the same fabricated money as criminal proceeds of fraud and requested the court to confiscate it, while at the same time, he identified it as tuition fees and business income of a cram school and sent it to the National Taxation Bureau for taxation. If it is illegal income from fraud, it should be confiscated according to the law, and there is no question of taxation; if it is tuition fees or business income for a cram school, it should be taxed, and not confiscated, and the two types of income cannot coexist. Hou’s self-contradictory indictment was completely rejected by the criminal courts of first, second and third instance, and the final court decision confirmed that there was no fraud (no illegal income), no tax evasion (not tuition fees or business income for a cram school), no violation of the Tax Collection Act, and no back tax.
However, the illogical and contradictory indictment has caused Tai Ji Men to spend 24 years on a tax case, and in August 2020, when the leader of Tai Ji Men didn’t owe any tax, the land he purchased for his disciples' training was forcibly and illegally auctioned and confiscated by the government. The abuse of power by the prosecutor has far-reaching consequences and is extremely harmful.
In 2010, the Ministry of Justice sent a letter to the High Prosecutor's Office, listing the Tai Ji Men case and other cases handled by Hou Kuan-Jen, stating in detail its investigation opinion, and pointing out that "Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen's handling of the cases over the years was not rigorous and failed to comply with proper legal procedures, and even involved negligence." The High Prosecutor's Office was requested to hold Hou Kuan-Jen administratively responsible for the above-mentioned negligence and report the results of the punishment to the Ministry of Justice. However, the High Prosecutor's Office convened a performance evaluation meeting on its own to decide whether to punish Hou Kuan-Jen, instead of directly taking disciplinary action against Hou according to the Ministry of Justice's instructions. The absurd punishment resolution of the High Prosecutor's Office for the Tai Ji Men case handled by Hou Kuan-jen is as follows.
The Tai Ji Men case: Failure to properly direct investigators, allowing the investigator to send the related party Wang Yun-Ying to the basement, after the hearing, where she was received by the bailiff on duty and sent to the waiting room, resulting in the restriction of Wang Yun-Ying’s personal freedom. Even though the violation of law and misconduct involved negligence, it is not considered because the 10-year statute of limitations on civil service discipline has expired.
The prosecutor has harmed the lives, property and human rights of many people, and the number of victims exceeds ten thousand. Although the Control Yuan issued a letter to the Ministry of Justice, demanding it to punish the prosecutor severely, but the officials protect one another, and it was claimed that the 10-year statute of limitations for civil service discipline has expired, and Hou was exempted. The government's decision to promote Hou to the deputy director-general of the Agency Against Corruption is unacceptable and makes people wonder who is protecting Hou Kuan-jen. Why can he continue to be promoted when there is solid evidence of his gross violations of human rights with his authority? If the Ministry of Justice, which is supposed to uphold justice, and the Control Yuan, which is supposed to defend human rights, repeatedly condone the abuse of power by a public official who broke the law and violated human rights, this will embolden judicial officials who disobey the law and seriously damage Taiwan's image in the international community!