Taiwan Releases Southland Publisher : Still Faces Charges of Printing Pro-Communist Propaganda

Lee Ya-ping, publisher of a Monterey Park-based Chinese-language newspaper who was arrested in Taiwan last week on charges of publishing Communist Chinese propaganda, was released this morning in Taipei, pending arraignment, according to an editor of her publication.

Lee, 62, a Taiwan citizen with immigrant status in the United States, was released without bail “on one condition--she has to report to them whenever they want her,” Anthony Yuen, editor in chief of the International Daily News, said late Wednesday after talking with her by telephone. “She said they did not mention when they would arraign her,” Yuen said. “She said everything is fine. The people in the detention house treated her nice.

“We still have to wait for further developments,” Yuen said. “(We) have to wait for their charge at arraignment. She is conditionally free. Our main goal is for her to be unconditionally free, and come back to the United States.”

A Taiwan government spokesman contacted by phone at the Government Information Office in Taipei confirmed the release of Lee and read a statement: “The military prosecutor of the Taiwan Garrison Command Headquarters has now completed the investigation affirming Lee’s commitment of an offense. The military prosecutor, in reviewing this case, has recommended the military court assign Lee Ya-ping to reformatory education for a fresh start. The military prosecutor submits his recommendation to the military court today, which will issue a written verdict.”

Lee had been accused of violating the “Statute on the Punishment of Rebellion” by “continuously publishing seditious material favoring the Chinese Communist regime,” according to a statement released first in Taipei and later by the Los Angeles office of the Coordination Council for North American Affairs, Taiwan’s quasi-official diplomatic mission in the United States.

The San Marino resident was specifically accused of propagating “enemy united front offensives” and “attempting to disseminate defeatism among overseas Chinese communities” by publishing articles and editorials “urging establishment of Peking’s proposed postal, transportation and commercial links between (Taiwan) and the mainland.”

The statement, which originated with the Taiwan Garrison Command, added that Lee had published the entire text of a 1982 interview she conducted with Chai Zemin, who was China’s ambassador to the United States. Copies of Lee’s newspaper were circulated in Taiwan, despite a ban imposed by the government, the statement said.

Wire service reports from Taiwan on the day of her arrest indicated that Lee could be sentenced to death if convicted. But Victor Chang, deputy director of information and communication at Taiwan’s offices in Los Angeles, has stressed that the charges do not raise any such possibility.

Chang has also stated that Lee was arrested not for her publishing activities in the United States, but because she allegedly personally distributed in Taiwan copies of her newspaper that contained illegal materials. He acknowledged that this charge was not included in the original statement on her arrest.

Lee’s Sept. 17 arrest prompted protests and demands for her release from the U.S. State Department and members of Congress. Rep. Stephen J. Solarz (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s subcommittee on Asian and Pacific affairs, warned that the incident could threaten U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.