To the member states of the United Nations, the peoples and nations of the world who love justice and peace, and to all churches around the world.

On the eve of the fifty-ninth anniversary of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the spirit of our 1977 Declaration on Human Rights and our 1985 Confession of Faith, we declare：

Since the end of World War II in 1945, colonized peoples of the world have been exercising the basic human right of self-determination, thus becoming independent nations. The 23 million people of Taiwan remain the exception in that their inalienable right to statehood has been ignored or even actively opposed by member states of the United Nations. Clearly, the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights has not been implemented worldwide. This overt neglect is an injustice and an outright violation of the human rights of the Taiwanese people.

Though the Taiwanese people had been successively ruled by foreign colonial powers, in 1996, they were able for the first time to directly elect a president in a democratic procedure that achieved a bloodless and peaceful revolution. Moreover they were even able to complete a peaceful transfer of power in 2000. A native Taiwanese administration led by the Democratic Progressive Party replaced the Chinese Nationalist （KMT） regime which had implemented their colonial rule over Taiwan for several decades by means of martial law. As a result of this change the Taiwanese people today express a strong demand to join the United Nations using the name “Taiwan”.

However, China, the superpower to the west of Taiwan, has repeatedly exerted its emerging influence on the international community to violate, suppress, and isolate Taiwan in a way that has brutally oppressed the Taiwanese people and their fundamental rights. Despite being grieved and incensed by this degradation, we stand on the belief that human rights are ordained by God and that Taiwan has the right to membership in the United Nations so that the dignity of the Taiwanese people will be upheld by the international community.

Therefore we solemnly make this appeal to the world. We urge all to courageously support the Taiwanese people, who have been left on the outside, and open the door to United Nations membership so that hand in hand together we can promote justice and peace throughout the world.

"The Lord has told you, O man, what is good； and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" （Micah 6：8）

May God bless the United Nations, peoples and churches around the world. Amen.

 

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan

Moderator：  Rev. Dr. James Kheng-chiong Phoann

General Secretary：  Rev. Andrew Tek-khiam Tiunn

December 7, 2007