Violence against believers continues to shed blood. But there is also a less visible administrative violence, of which Tai Ji Men have become victims once again.
by Willy Fautré*
*A paper presented at the webinar “After the August 2 Taichung Decision on the Tai Ji Men Case: Can the Law Become a Tool of Violence?” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers on August 22, 2024, United Nations International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief.
The International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief was instituted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2019 and is held every year on 22 August.
In the 21st century, there are still parts of the world where people have no freedom to practice their religious beliefs. From insidious groups to state governments, everyone uses religion to stoke fear of the “other.” People from different faiths are routinely labeled security threats, and religious stigmatization is often the root cause of discrimination in every sphere of life.
The world of the 21st century has never been as polarized as it is today. While the freedom to practice religious belief is a fundamental right, we continue seeing violent acts of intolerance. Attacks on minority communities have increased in number and intensity.
On 8 February of this year, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning the massacre by gunmen last Christmas of at least 200 Christians in over 160 villages of Nigeria. According to Nigerian NGOs, 52,000 Christians and 34,000 Muslims have been killed since 2009, and 18,000 churches and 2,200 Christian schools have been destroyed.
In January of this year, the European Parliament adopted recommendations concerning India, which condemned violent clashes leaving at least 120 people dead and 50,000 displaced, 1,700 houses and over 250 churches as well as several temples and schools destroyed.
In June, in the early hours of Eid day, 17 June, a violent mob of around 150 people attacked an Ahmadiyya place in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir. The assailants opened fire and subsequently destroyed the minarets and arch of the building; 17 graves of the Ahmadiyya community were desecrated in Punjab. These violent attacks came in the aftermath of the religiously motivated killing of two Ahmadi men by a teenage Muslim student from a local Muslim madrassah.
Alarming and increasing religiously motivated violence also exists in our democratic countries.
In France, this year, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was attacked by three teenagers, aged 12 and 13, in a Paris suburb because she was a Jew. They were charged with anti-Semitic insults, violence, death threats, and rape for two of them.
In Germany, anti-Muslim sentiment has existed for many years and has increased in recent years, concluded a group of independent experts appointed by the German government in their report on the issue. The research showed that hostility towards Muslims and people perceived as Muslims is widespread throughout German society and has spread to schools.
In Japan, Jehovah’s Witnesses are experiencing a 638% increase in hate speech and hate crimes compared to the previous six years. This spike is a direct consequence of the Japanese government publicly assaulting the character of Jehovah’s Witnesses, asserting that parents teaching their religious beliefs to their children is tantamount to abuse.
Violence is not only physical, it is also psychological and moral. In the case of Tai Ji Men, all the dizi have gone through that sort of violence but there is another form of violence and suffering targeting specific religious and spiritual groups that usually remains unidentified and undetected by the human rights radars: it is the institutional violence. The perpetrators are state institutions such as tax administrations. This is what Tai ji Men once more experienced a few weeks ago.
Earlier this month, there was a golden opportunity to solve the Tai Ji Men case: a new President, a new government, a new court case, new arguments, the possibility of a pragmatic yet just solution.
Tai Ji Men offered to the Taichung High Administrative Court the opportunity to solve the matter and to get rid of an embarrassing case, by filing a new lawsuit where it asked for a refund of whatever might have been considered as payment for the fabricated 1992 tax bill.
Unfortunately, the Taichung judges ruled once again that the 2006 decision about the 1992 tax bill was final and no different disposition was possible.
Unfortunately, this opportunity was again missed. Unfortunately, injustice prevailed, not justice.
