98 Gay Men Arrested

[Bu Lai En]

This old Taipei Times feature is good:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar ... /11/159895

As well as info about the leagality of searches and tests I find it interesting that while the police are cracking down on MDMA (ecstacy) in nightclubs, the use fo amphetamines (speed) is ten times as common, and generally not used in clubs. Also figures of busts where everyone is tested 'on suspicion' but only 1 in ten tests positive.

Brian

[chodofu]

This old Taipei Times feature is good:

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/ar ... /11/159895

Brian

Thanks, but do you really expect me to trust David Fraizer,
that POTS head?:wink:

Chou

[Tigerman]

There is a difference. When testing, even randomly, drivers for drunk-driving, they are looking to ascertain whether the drivers are driving while impaired by drink. They already KNOW that the individuals who they are requiring to take the test are in fact driving.

Contrastingly, the police at the party did NOT catch anyone in any sexual act, so they don't know that anyone was in fact "driving" while impaired. Its not a crime to be HIV+ any more than it is a crime to be drunk.

The cops don't know who, if anyone, was driving. Cops don't enter a pub and demand pubgoers to all take a breathalyzer test. They wait until the pubgoers leave the pub and start driving.

Hence my wavering and qualifications before the statment. Yes they are different, but the fact of the 14, the drug abuse, and the high risk, seems to provide sufficient evidence of "drunken driving".

No more so than is my drinking in a pub evidence of my driving while drunk. Heck, I don't even drive... yet you'd have me hauled off to jail for failing a breathalyzer test while seated in a pub... hock: Chou, say it ain't so!

As it stands I do not see any clear violation of human rights.

I don't see any violation of the law. Yes, there were some drugs found... but there were 98 guys... did the police catch any one of the 98 using the drugs? The report says "no".

What these guys were doing was incredibly dangerous. Their actions should be called into question, all 98 of 'em.

Did the police catch any one (or two) of the 98 guys engaging in sexual activity? The report says "no". Moreover, as MT pointed out, the police found condoms, which indicate that some people were practicing safe sex.

As much as I do not like it, I can live with it as waiting for the unspecting to transfer the disease is like waiting for the drunk to hit an innocent pedestrian.

I am as disgusted as you are... but only if a risky act in fact took place. We don't know that such did take place. Just as the police don't know that the guy in the pub will actually commit a risky act after leaving the pub.

After all, isn't it a greater violation to wait for these guy's to have sex again (start driving) and then bust them in the act?

Chou, I can't resist. That was, basically, Bush's argument for utilizing preemptive force against Iraq... but you don't appear to support that.

[chodofu]

After all, isn't it a greater violation to wait for these guy's to have sex again (start driving) and then bust them in the act?

Chou, I can't resist. That was, basically, Bush's argument for utilizing preemptive force against Iraq... but you don't appear to support that.

Doh!!. Actually, I was all for the war. As for all the other rebuttals, I know I am walking a thin line here, especially since I lack any hard facts.

No more so than is my drinking in a pub evidence of my driving while drunk. Heck, I don't even drive... yet you'd have me hauled off to jail for failing a breathalyzer test while seated in a pub... Chou, say it ain't so!

It ain't so.

Obviously this differs from drunk driving, and I now regret using that example, but while were on it... the difference being that reasonable suspicion is sufficient to demand further investigation in this case. Where there some way of doing this at the scene, all the better.

Taking your keys away to ensure that you did not drive, or being the concientous pub owner and escorting you to a taxi, these are acceptable solutions when you suspect a drunk person may be dangerous to others.

Where is the equvalent alternative here? These guy's were distrubing the peace, they were using illegal drugs, and they were suspected of further crimes. They were not sitting on a bar stool getting drunk, they were drunk and driving out of control. Wearing a seatbelt (condom) while wise, does not mitgate the danger they posed to others and eachother.

[skeptic yank]

more police state bully boy antics. mainland prostitutes working every other corner throughout the island and the "boys in blue" gang crack down on a bunch of youngins experimenting with who they are. and being the skeptic that I am, I know why: some little cop-lad was irate that he didn't get an invite so the spurned suitor turned the whole mess of small fry in. doesn't such brave efforts make you feel safer as you check your frontdoor's exterior cage door the last time each night before you return to your abbreviated slumber each night?

land of the scared and the home of the cowed. i wish it was just taiwan, but it ain't.

[kevort]

It is difficult to cry human rights violations here. Noise complaints were the reason for the police to show up. Illegal drug use was the reason to call for back up cops and investigators, and when/how the media caught on. Now we already know that the media is out of control (and yes Flcka in America too). Its just another disgusting act and poor self censorship on their part.

I'm only a photographer...here's a round of thought....

the police arrested 98 people, for sure they documented everything with at least a camera for evidence and probably a couple of times over with video. Imagine all the photos and footage they probably took. If they are convicted the evidence probably won't be able to be sealed and the tapes could be pried loose by a simple media request. In fact I would assume that some one poured over a whole pile of photos and editted it all down to just one photo....who that was and how many more photos will be released to prove a point is something folks will have to wait and see. It seems to me that usually the police going around on raiding parties with media that they don't necessarily control in tow. I wonder how that gets negotiated out before things get a good airing?

[Mother Theresa]

In the US, the fact that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty is considered extremely important and judges and jurors are often disqualified from a case if they have prejudged it. In Taiwan, on the other hand, that idea doesn't carry much weight as evidenced by the routine media coverage of criminal suspects who are apparently presumed guilty until proven innocent. For a while I thought they were going to be putting burlap sacks over the heads of the arrested to protect them from the cameras but I guess they changed their minds.

I think all of this is related to public apathy in Taiwan about the death penalty and other human rights issues. People here just don't care unless it involves themselves or maybe their family. If its just 98 homos in their undies, who gives a shit -- it's not my problem and they're probably guilty of something anyway.

[LittleBuddhaTW]

Tigerman,
Perhaps they didn't find anyone engaged in risky sexual activity when they arrived, perhaps they found condoms, perhaps none of those 98 people were using drugs ... this time ...

However, it is a *fact* that these kinds of parties are becoming more and more common ... they do involve lots of drugs and lots of unprotected sex ... and it is also true that sex education in Taiwan is poorly lacking and that most gay males (well, most males in general) are either too scared or embarrassed to go get testing. All of this adds up to a pretty lethal combination.

I definitely think sometimes that the good of the society must be put before the rights of a few individuals. I agree with what the police did ... in fact, I would've gone farther and not released them so quickly ... give them a really good scare so they wouldn't do that kind of crap again.

[chodofu]

In the US, the fact that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty is considered extremely important and judges and jurors are often disqualified from a case if they have prejudged it. In Taiwan, on the other hand, that idea doesn't carry much weight as evidenced by the routine media coverage of criminal suspects who are apparently presumed guilty until proven innocent. For a while I thought they were going to be putting burlap sacks over the heads of the arrested to protect them from the cameras but I guess they changed their minds.

I think all of this is related to public apathy in Taiwan about the death penalty and other human rights issues. People here just don't care unless it involves themselves or maybe their family. If its just 98 homos in their undies, who gives a shit -- it's not my problem and they're probably guilty of something anyway.

Is Taiwanese law based on the Napoleonic Code?

[Mother Theresa]

LB: Do you know that everyone there was having sex or doing drugs? Is it possible someone was simply socializing there and has now been publicly outed as an orgy/drug participant? And obviously many of the people wore condoms. Why should they be publicly humiliated? Maybe some people pick up dates in cram school or KTV parlors, but why should the fact that one finds satisfaction at "house parties" subject one to such public humiliation. Isn't it safer to fuck someone you met at an orgy while wearing a condom than to fuck various cram school students without a condom? And if it was a public health service raid, as some feel, should the police have the right to enact an arbitrary policy of random public humiliation? After all, if there was any crime apparently it concerned drugs and not sex. So, why should a drug raid result in publicly broadcast photos of near-naked men? If the cops don't have evidence that any particular man had drugs or broke any other law, what right do they have to publicly humiliate all of them like that?

Cho: I think it's based on Morse Code.