By fighting for justice in their paradigmatic case, Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples) also fight for the freedom of many other persecuted spiritual movements.
by Camelia Marin*
*A paper presented at the CESNUR 2024 international conference, Université Bordeaux Montaigne, Bordeaux, France, June 12, 2024.
The Tai Ji Men case has been presented in scholarly articles and seminars and in institutional forums, both in Taiwan and abroad. This conference again raises the question how and why it was possible that the Tai Ji Men case continued unsolved for more than twenty-seven years. Taiwan is an otherwise laudable country for its path to democracy and freedom of religion or belief, and I hope that also this case will find its happy end.
The Tai Ji Men case is at the crossroads of freedom of religion or belief (FORB) and tax justice. More precisely, taxes have been used as a tool to discriminate against a spiritual minority, as it has happened with other religious movements and in other countries as well.
France, for example, in its fight against groups labelled as “cults,” weaponized taxes for religious discrimination, just as in Taiwan we can notice the misuse of tax law for the purpose of FORB discrimination.
It looks like a temptation of governments and bureaucrats to use taxes as tools to repress those who think from another perspective or “outside of the box.” Instead of enlarging perspectives and the inclusiveness of the system, we find a narrow and rigid approach and limits imposed through the institutions.
Tai Ji Men is not the first spiritual group that found itself at the receiving end of repression using taxes as its tool.
Besides the misuse of taxes, another temptation of the institutions is the labeling as “cult” of a spiritual minority, accusing the leader of the group of some standard charges, usually fraud, human trafficking, or sexual abuse, on the basis of dubious testimonies. Indeed, this it is a common way for political systems to react against unpopular new religious movements.
It is always unfortunate when an innocent is wrongly accused. It is even more unfortunate when media report one-sidedly the version of the prosecution, confusing those who do not have access to alternative information.
False accusations are leaked from prosecutors to the media so that members of the accused spiritual movements become suspect in the eyes of society, and maybe even in front of their families, just because they continue in their path and follow the voice of their conscience.
All this also happened to Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples). I have heard several testimonies, not only in this session. The impact of official harassment on the personal lives of the dizi is both sad and impressive.
In many countries, laws result in members of religious and spiritual minorities being treated differently, subjected to restrictions or arbitrary conditions on how they can live their lives, just because of who they are, or what they do. Such laws deny human rights and fundamental freedoms and states have a moral and legal obligation to remove them.
For several scholars present here, discovering the truth about the Tai Ji Men case has been a long process, as several forces tried to hide it behind a curtain of disinformation and lies. Time and again, in the case of new religious movements, we see false representation and a preferential access for prosecutors to mass media. Sometimes, scandals are created out of nothing, following the media’s own interests and biases.
We have thus identified one of the problems making the life of spiritual minorities such as Tai Ji Men difficult– the lack of impartiality and correct access to information. Also, a well-functioning justice system should optimally be flawless, and when not so, it should have the power to correct and compensate its mistakes.
Since its legal inception in 1966, the Tai Ji Men Qigong Academy never had any tax problem. However, in 1996, it was persecuted as part of a politically motivated crackdown on several spiritual movements in Taiwan. Prosecutor Hou Kuan-Jen used false witnesses and fabricated evidence to falsely accuse Tai Ji Men of fraud and tax evasion.
As we have heard in this conference, in 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that Tai Ji Men was innocent of all charges and did not owe any taxes. However, the National Taxation Bureau refused to fully apply the court decision, which resulted in ill-founded tax bills and finally on the seizure, unsuccessful auction, and nationalization of Tai Ji Men’s sacred land in 2020.
It took more than a decade for Tai Ji Men to be found innocent of tax evasion and all other charges by the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court in 2007. This should have confirmed once and for all that Tai J Men did not owe any taxes, yet the case continued until today.
The actions of Taiwan’s National Taxation Bureau can be qualified as illegal persecution, as the Bureau ignored the Supreme Court’s final decision and continued to issue unjustified tax bills to Tai Ji Men, finally resulting in the unlawful seizure and nationalization of a land where the movement intended to build a self-cultivation and educational center.
Confronted with repression and human rights abuses, over the past 28 years, under the leadership of Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, Tai Ji Men dizi have never given up hope and have insisted on doing the right thing and proclaiming domestically and internationally a message of peace, love and conscience. Their good practices became a support for the Taiwanese society and inspired thousands throughout the world.
Their case also resonates with other spiritual communities facing similar abuses from the authorities or being discriminated in different ways. By their continuous struggle for peace and justice, Tai Ji Men dizi contribute to the freedom of many other spiritual movements throughout the world.
I hope that their voice will finally be heard and considered by Taiwanese authorities as well.
Camelia Marin is a Romanian human right activist and deputy director of the pro-religious-liberty NGO Soteria International.
