February 5-11
China
Three UN special rapporteurs expressed alarm that about one million Tibetan children have been separated from their families and are being forcibly assimilated into Han Chinese culture at boarding schools. The experts sent a communication to the Chinese government on November 11, 2022 and remain in contact with authorities regarding the issue.
The Supreme People’s Court released fifteen typical cases involving cultural relics and cultural heritage. This batch includes criminal, civil, and administrative cases, as well as public interest lawsuits brought by prosecutors. Officials at a press conference said that over 170,000 pieces of cultural relics in 11,000 criminal cases were recovered since 2012.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate (SPP) released statistics about the fight against organized crime. According to the SPP, about 14,000 defendants were prosecuted for organized crime in 2022, a year-on-year decrease of 32.1%. China launched a three-year nationwide special campaign to crack down organized crime in January 2018 and promulgated the Anti-organized Crime Law in May 2022.
The Communist Party’s Central Commission of Discipline Inspection and the National Commission of Supervision said in a report that over 2,300 officials from disciplinary inspection and supervision agencies at all levels were themselves subject to disciplinary punishment in 2022; 110 others were transferred to judicial organs for investigation.
Three high level officials were indicted for corruption in unrelated cases in Hainan and Tibet respectively. They are Liu Cheng (刘诚), the former deputy secretary of the Hainan Provincial Political Legal Committee; Liu Hushan (刘虎山), the former mayor of Keze City in Tibet; and Yao Changyu (姚常雨), former member of the Standing Committee of the Keze City Party Committee in Tibet.
Hong Kong
The Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong sided with two transgender men who challenged a government policy that requires transgender people to undergo full sex reassignment surgery in order to change the gender marker on their government-issued identity cards. The court ruled that the policy violates the right to privacy under the Hong Kong Bill of Rights ordinance. The ruling is considered a victory for the LGBTQ+ community.
Two years after the arrest of 47 of Hong Kong’s most prominent pro-democracy advocates, 16 went on trial before a three-judge panel. They are charged with conspiracy to commit subversion and could face up to life in prison. The 31 other accused have pleaded guilty and expect to be sentenced after their colleagues’ trial ends.
Japan
The Hiroshima District Court dismissed a lawsuit from the children of World War II atomic bomb survivors who are seeking government financial support. Survivors of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki receive financial aid and coverage of medical expenses, but their children are eligible only for free health checks. The children argued that this violates Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees people’s equality under the law. The Nagasaki District Court dismissed a similar claim in December.
The Japanese Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) said in a recently published report that Google and Apple have abused their “superior bargaining position” with respect to mobile apps and should take steps to open up their app ecosystems “so that other developers' apps, products and services can be interoperable with the mobile OS.” The report must be further evaluated by the government before any enforcement action is taken.
Koreas
The Seoul Central District Court ordered the South Korean government to pay close to 30 million won (US$24,000) to a Vietnamese woman who was wounded and whose family members were killed by South Korean marines fighting on the US side in Vietnam in 1968. The court concluded that the marines had massacred unarmed villagers. The South Korean government has long refused to address allegations of civilian massacres by its troops in Vietnam.
South Korea’s Financial Services Commission widened the scope of digital tokens that may be considered securities. Tokens that offer holders a stake in a commercial enterprise or bestow dividend rights in corporate profits will be classified as securities, while stablecoins will not. Meanwhile, legislators are working to create the Digital Asset Basic Act (DABA), an all-encompassing legal framework for regulating Korea's dynamic crypto industry.
The Personal Information Protection Commission, a central administrative body, is fining Facebook parent company Meta 6.6 million won (about US$5,240) for blocking people from using Facebook and Instagram services if they refuse to provide their behavioral information. The commission said this policy violates the Personal Information Protection Act.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission is imposing a combined fine of 42.3 billion won ($33.48 million) on Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Volkswagen for colluding to curb emissions-cleaning technology for their diesel cars.
Two legislators who are trying to revise South Korea’s Copyright Act held a forum at which film directors and screenwriters argued for a share of the copyright revenue from their works. The current law allows all the profits from televised dramas, films, and content made for online streaming services to go to a production company. Creatives like Bong Joon-ho, director of the Oscar-winning film “Parasite,” receive only a contractual fee from the production company.
Taiwan
The Supreme Court upheld a Taiwan businessman’s one-year sentence for breaching the Counter-Terrorism Financing Act by illegally selling 2,829 metric tons of oil to North Korea. The Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch convicted Huang Wang-ken (黃旺根), the owner of the several shipping companies and a tanker, last October. It found that Huang arranged two illicit ship-to-ship fuel transfers in international waters in 2018.
Legislators called for the creation of an independent agency to protect personal data in the wake of a series of large-scale data leaks. In recent months, data breaches have been reported at vehicle-sharing service iRent and China Airlines, as well as leaks of National Health Insurance, intelligence, and household registration data. A Democratic Progressive Party lawmaker said the greatest problem has been the dispersal of responsibility under the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
The Legislative Yuan passed revisions to the Crime Victims Protection Act (犯罪被害人權益保障法) after the third reading. The amendments enhance protection of victims’ privacy and increase compensation to victims or next of kin in cases of manslaughter, murder, crimes resulting in severe injuries, and sexual assault.