In 2019, a group of Taiwanese living in Norway decided to file a lawsuit against the Norwegian Immigration Service, the Norwegian Immigration Petition Board, and the Oslo Police Department for violation of their right to identity because they were unhappy that the Norwegian government had changed the nationality of Taiwanese residence permits to Chinese since 2010. After losing all three trials, they decided to turn to the European Court of Human Rights to file a complaint. The lead prosecutor said that if the application is not accepted by the European Court of Human Rights, depending on the financial situation, he will not rule out filing a complaint with the UN Human Rights Committee.
A group of Taiwanese in Norway, dissatisfied with the change of nationality of their residence permits to Chinese, raised funds to sue the Norwegian government, which was recently rejected by the local Supreme Court. According to a report by the Central News Agency today, the Taiwanese students sued the Norwegian government because their residence permits were listed as Chinese nationality, and after losing three trials in Norwegian domestic courts and exhausting domestic remedies to no avail, they turned to the European Court of Human Rights to file a complaint.
Joseph, one of the plaintiffs and the initiator of the “Campaign for the Retitling of Taiwanese Nationality in Norway”, returned to Norway from Taiwan recently to work with his lawyer to prepare the case for the European Court of Human Rights. Jolly is fluent in French and has a long history of interest in human rights issues in China, and has experience in many international litigations related to equality and discrimination.
According to Joseph, the European Court of Human Rights is an important human rights indicator in the world. If the case can be litigated in the European Court of Human Rights, it will hopefully influence the practice of the state party in handling residence permits for Taiwanese, and will be the first case in which nationality is used as a claim for the right to identity.
Joseph told the Central News Agency that the European Court of Human Rights receives a large number of cases each year, excluding those that do not meet the requirements, the general acceptance rate is about 1/10. In the long run, it will be helpful for Taiwan to stand as a normal country in the international community.
The campaign for the proper designation of Taiwanese nationality in Norway began in 2017 and has attracted the attention of the Norwegian media. Norway’s number one newspaper, Aftenposten, has reported on the issue many times, making more Norwegians aware of Taiwan. On March 4 of this year, Halvor Eifring, a professor in the Department of Cultural Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo, and a number of other scholars wrote a letter to the Norwegian Daily News (DN) questioning Norway’s one-China policy, supporting the retitling of Taiwan’s residence permit, and supporting Taiwan’s participation in the World Health Organization (WHO).
Joseph, a human rights researcher, believes that it is important to fight for one’s own rights, which is a very important characteristic of citizenship as a “Taiwanese”. That’s why he thought he would file a lawsuit or other remedies to claim his rights as a Taiwanese, regardless of the short-term outcome, in the hope of calling on the international community to show empathy for Taiwanese or Taiwan.
Joseph said that he hopes to make his voice heard in the international community by signing the petition, and hopes to let the international community know that there are many overseas Taiwanese who have similar voices, not just a small group of Taiwanese in Norway who feel subjectively.
He said that if this application is not accepted by the European Court of Human Rights, depending on the funding situation, he will not rule out filing a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee in the future.
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