We normally associate violence against religion or belief with blood and torture. But court decisions may be inherently violent, too.
by Daniela Bovolenta
On August 22, 2024, the United Nations celebrated the yearly International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers organized one of their regular webinars on the Tai Ji Men case. The title, “After the August 2 Taichung Decision on the Tai Ji Men Case: Can the Law Become a Tool of Violence?” referred to an unjust verdict by the Taichung High Administrative Court pronounced against Tai Ji Men on August 2, 2024.
What it was all about was summarized in the introduction by Massimo Introvigne, an Italian sociologist and the editor-in-chief of “Bitter Winter,” and in a paper by Alessandro Amicarelli, a London-based human rights attorney and the President of the European Federation for Freedom of Belief (FOB), as well as in the conclusions of the webinar by Marco Respinti, an Italian scholar and journalist and “Bitter Winter”’s director-in-charge.
The same facts were presented and commented in a powerful statement by Tai Ji Men dizi about the August 2 decision, included in a video that Introvigne introduced at the beginning of the webinar. The video also highlighted the paradox of a movement hailed for his good work in the field of global peace education and promotion by both international and Taiwanese authorities and at the same time harassed for decades with fabricated tax bills. Further explanations were offered by Gau Ding-Yi, a human rights observer from the Association of World’s Citizens, in a video that opened the second session.
The three speakers—Introvigne, Amicarelli, and Respinti—all summarized the events of the Tai Ji Men case prior to the August 2, 2024, decision. In 1996, Tai Ji Men was among the victims of a politically motivated purge against spiritual and religious movements accused of fraud and tax evasion. In 2007, Taiwan’s Supreme Court with a final decision declared the Tai Ji Men defendants innocent of all charges, including tax evasion. In the meantime, however, based on the original faulty criminal indictment, the National Taxation Bureau (NTB) had hit Tai Ji Men with tax bills for the years from 1991 to 1996. The NTB claimed that the “red envelopes” that Tai Ji Men dizi (disciples) give to their Shifu (Grand Master) when they join the movement and in special occasions do not include non-taxable gifts but tuition fees for an alleged “cram school.” Even after several authorities had clarified that Tai Ji Men was not a cram school, including the Supreme Court in 2007 and the Supreme Administrative Court in 2018, the NTB maintained its ill-founded tax bills.
The bills for different years were litigated separately. Finally, the NTB agreed to correct all tax bills to zero, except the one for the year 1992. For the latter, it argued that a decision rendered in 2006 by the Supreme Administrative Court was final, and no different disposition was possible. Based on the 1992 tax bill, in 2020 land regarded by Tai Ji Men as sacred and intended for a self-cultivation and education center was confiscated, unsuccessfully auctioned off, and nationalized, generating widespread protests in Taiwan and internationally.
On August 2, the Taichung High Administrative Court had the opportunity to solve the Tai Ji Men case after almost 28 years by ruling on a case where the movement had asked for the refund of whatever might have been considered as payment for the 1992 tax bill. The request was based inter alia on Article 28 of the Tax Collection Act, which calls for refund of taxes wrongly assessed. It is true that in 2021 the article was amended to state (unfairly) that when a tax bill has been confirmed by a final court decision Article 28 can no longer be applied. However, Tai Ji Men had requested a refund of whatever might have been considered as payment of the 1992 tax bill before the 2021 amendment of Article 28. The amendment cannot be applied retroactively, Tai Ji Men argued.
The Taichung judges, however, did not follow this interpretation, did not take the opportunity of solving the case, and ruled once again against Tai Ji Men, maintaining that the 2006 decision about the 1992 tax bill was final. They even suggested that perhaps something different had happened in 1992 with respect to the other years, ignoring the fact that the NTB itself had repeatedly put in writing that the bills for 1992 and for the other years were based on the same underlying facts.
Introvigne, Amicarelli, and Respinti all stigmatized the Taichung decision, noting that it severely damaged Taiwan’s international reputation, casting doubts on its self-representation as a country respectful of freedom of religion or belief and a full-blown democracy.
Each speaker also offered literary references illuminating the deep injustice of the Taichung decision. Introvigne evoked the trilogy “Oresteia,” where the Greek playwright Aeschylus used a myth to show how modern courts of law were created in the ancient Athens. Aeschylus, Introvigne said, also implied that courts of law can prevent rather than creating violence only if their decisions are based on common sense and inherent justice rather than on a simple mechanical and literalistic interpretation of the law. Unfortunately, there was no common sense nor inherent justice in the Taichung decision, Introvigne concluded.
Amicarelli quoted a classic 1944 book by Austrian-British philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek, “The Road to Serfdom,” to argue that decisions such as the one rendered in Taichung destroy liberty and pave the road to serfdom and tyranny. Respinti mentioned the novel “Der Prozess” (The Trial), by Prague’s novelist Franz Kafka, published posthumously in 1925 one year after his death, where a man is prosecuted and finally killed without even understanding what crime he is accused of. The novel, Respinti noted, gave to modern English language the adjective “Kafkaesque,” which describes very accurately what happened in Taiwan to Tai Ji Men.
In addition to Amicarelli, Introvigne introduced the other speaker of the first session, Rita Santillan from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. Santillan is known as the world’s leading authority on the difficult esoteric thought, which is also based on astrology, of French spiritual master Serge Raynaud de la Ferrière, who died in 1962. She met Tai Ji Men dizi in international scholarly conferences and took an interest in their message of peace and love and in the tax case. Santillan noted Ferrière’s interest in Taoism and Chinese culture, and how some of his comments resonates with teachings of Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, the Shifu of Tai Ji Men. She also praised Tai Ji Men dizi for “resisting violence by affirming truth” in their long-lasting fight for justice.
Willy Fautré, co-founder and director of Human Rights Without Frontiers, introduced the second session of the webinar. He noted that physical violence against religious minorities has not disappeared from our world, not even in democratic countries, and cited examples from Nigeria, India, Pakistan, France, Germany, and Japan. He also reiterated that violence against believers is not only physical. It can also be psychological and moral, he said, and in this sense Tai Ji Men’s Shifu and dizi fully deserve to be called victims of acts of violence based on their beliefs, as was also confirmed by the injustice perpetrated by the Taichung court.
Fautré then presented the testimonies of five dizi. Claudia Huang, a lawyer, criticized two aspects of the Taichung decision. First, she explained that the 2021 amendment to Article 28 of the Tax Collection Act was unjust and severely limited taxpayers’ rights. However, she added that by amending Article 28 in 2021 the government implicitly acknowledged that before the amendment the article also applied to cases where an administrative decision had been rendered. The old article 28 before the amendment rather than the 2021 version should thus have been applied to the Tai Ji Men case. Second, she contested the argument in the Taichung decision that the facts on which the tax bill for 1992 was based are different from those underlying the bills for the other years, which were rectified to zero. Not only this is false, Huang said, but the same NTB has repeatedly admitted that nothing happened in 1992 that was different from the other years.
Anna Chao, a junior high school teacher, reported the sadness she experienced in the court of Taichung on August 2 when the verdict was announced with the short sentence, “The plaintiff’s appeal is dismissed.” She analyzed the statistics of the Taichung High Administrative Court judges in ruling consistently against taxpayers in general and Tai Ji Men in particular, which indicate an obvious bias. She expressed the hope that the Supreme Administrative Court may rectify a verdict that is clearly wrong.
Chuck Cherng, who work as a manager in an ICT industry, noted that the judge who signed the Taichung decision, Liu Xi-Xian, has ruled five times in Tai Ji Men cases, always against Tai Ji Men. Cherng knew the judge’s attitude before the verdict, yet he maintained some hope that this time he might decide differently, particularly because in 2018 the Supreme Administrative Court had clearly told him that one of his previous decisions, where he had claimed incorrectly that Tai Ji Men was a cram school, was wrong. Unfortunately, however, Judge Liu persisted in the same biased attitude. Cherng mentioned measures introduced in the United States to protect employees from decisions systematically favorable to their employers and suggested that Judge Liu should perhaps be investigated for his consistent anti-taxpayers bias.
Kiki Ho, a manager in a design company, reported that she also left her workplace and rushed to Taichung on August 2 hoping to hear a favorable verdict. As all the other dizi there, she was sadly disappointed and led to reflect on the dismal record of a court that almost always rules against taxpayers. She compared the sadness of that day in Taichung with the joy and excitement she experimented when traveling with Dr. Hong to spread Tai Ji Men’s message of peace and love throughout the world, including to Stockholm, Sweden, in 2022. Tai Ji Men, she said, does not cherish court fights and protests. The dizi’s heartfelt desire would be to be left alone and be free to continue their mission of peace without being harassed by fabricated taxes and compelled to devote to protests resources they could otherwise employ for the benefit and prosperity of their fellow human beings.
Wu Chi-Chung, a human rights observer, summarized the story of how the authorities at all levels in Taiwan have conclusively assessed that Tai Ji Men is not a cram school, yet this false theory continues to determine wrong decisions. He also traced a story of the biases of the Taichung High Administrative Court judges, perpetuating problems with the Chinese judiciary that date back to Imperial times. Wu concluded by expressing the hope that Taiwan will finally respect the United Nations Two Covenants, which it has incorporated into its domestic legislation in 2009, a move many applauded but which had not so far generated completely consequent results.
After his conclusions, Marco Respinti introduced the video “Rising Wings and Surging Clouds,” a musical celebration of Tai Ji Men dizi’s resilience, loyalty, unity with their Shifu, and commitment to justice. Their fight continues, with the support of a growing number of international friends.
