Taipei, Jan. 7 (CNA) Eleven Japanese attorneys were awarded the "2006 Human Rights Award" by the Taiwan Association of Human Rights (TAHR) Saturday for their volunteer efforts in helping Taiwanese Hansen's Disease patients win a compensation lawsuit against the Japanese government.
The award is the first human rights award presented by a Taiwanese organization.
The group received the sprout-shaped trophy, symbolic of the fact that human rights awareness is budding in Taiwan, in a Japanese-style house built during the period of Japanese colonial rule when the Japanese government placed the patients under mandatory quarantine and ignored their human rights.
Japanese Hansen's disease patients won a landmark court ruling in 2001 against the government's former segregation policy. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi decided not to appeal and apologized in a political move aimed at settling the issue. Patients from South Korea and Taiwan followed with similar lawsuits.
With the success in helping the Japanese patients, more than 20 attorneys from Japan began working with patients in Taiwan in August 2004 and later filed a damages suit against the Japanese government.
Tokyo District Court announced its ruling in the cases involving the South Korean and Taiwan patients, respectively, on Oct. 25, 2005. The Taiwan patients won their case, while the South Koreans lost theirs. The Japanese government appealed within two weeks.
Speaking at Saturday's ceremony, TAHR President Wu Hao-jen said "the fight for human rights is a lonely road, and you get frustrated easily in Taiwan. But I find the courage to keep walking when I think about these Japanese friends who came all the way from Japan for the ceremony today. They won my highest respect for what they've done for Taiwan."
Due to the public's fears of Hansen's disease and to the quarantine policy, the patients have been living in Losheng Sanatorium Hospital in Sinjhuang City, Taipei County, for decades, where they have suffered discrimination from the general public.
In addition to the compensation lawsuit in Japan, the patients are also fighting for the preservation of the Losheng Sanatorium Hospital, which is slated to be dismantled to make room for a Taipei MRT construction project. Patients who are currently living there will be relocated, although many of them don't want to move.
Fortunately, the hospital has been designated by the Council of Cultural Affairs as a historical building, so the plans to dismantle it have been postponed for at least six months.
Established on International Human Rights Day on Dec. 10, 1984, the TAHR is the oldest independent human rights organization in Taiwan.