The subject they talked about was apparently Taiwan's attempt to join the World Health Assembly (WHA) over China's objections. However, the story leaves unsaid whether members of the alliance broached the topic of Ma's illiberal and undemocratic practices of the past few months.
If they're not aware of these, they maybe ought to get themselves a clue:
UPDATE: Nothing at all about this at the ALDE's website.
UPDATE (Nov 28/08): Had a headache when I wrote this, and the tone is a little grouchier than I intended. My apologies for that.
Thursday's Taipei Times had a bit more on the ALDE visit:
At a separate setting on Tuesday, Graham Watson, leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the European Parliament, told the Taiwanese media that [former Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian] should not have been handcuffed when he was taken to court two weeks ago for a detention hearing.
Although the principle of rule of law should be respected, “there should also be a rule of civility,” he said, adding that as Chen was unlikely to escape, handcuffing the former president had been unnecessary.
Ehh. Don't know about the whole "rule of civility" thing. Let's just get back to the rule of law for a moment:
November 11/08 – Chen is arrested without charge, handcuffed and thrown into the clink, incommunicado. (Draconian, but all perfectly legal under a martial-law era statute.)
November 16/08 – Chen is sent to hospital in the middle of a hunger strike. Unhandcuffed.
So what's the legal "rule" here? Do Taiwanese police rules force them to handcuff suspects, or don't they? Or do they just make it up as they go along, handcuffing the former president in order to throw red meat to Chen-haters, and leaving him unhandcuffed when they don't want the public to sympathize with his plight too much?
Not to be too hard on Mr. Watson. I googled him, and he sounds like a good friend of Taiwan. His Asian trip apparently ends later this week, and I definitely want to check out his blog to see if he has any further observations on the current state of the Beautiful Isle.