Taiwan’s envoy to Kenya, John Chen, had asked Kenya not to deport the five Taiwanese to China.
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Taiwan protested Monday Kenya’s deportation of five Taiwanese citizens to China after they were acquitted of running a cybercrime cell last week, as relations with Beijing worsen under the island’s new president.
Kenya, along with a large majority of other countries around the world, has no diplomatic relations with Taiwan and considers the island part of China, in line with Beijing’s position.
A Kenyan court on Friday acquitted 35 Chinese and five Taiwanese held in custody since December 2014 for allegedly running a cybercrime cell from an upmarket Nairobi suburb on the grounds that the prosecution had failed to prove their involvement.
Human rights organization Amnesty International on August 5 called for Kenyan authorities to not deport the five Taiwanese to China.
Forty-five other Taiwanese nationals arrested on similar charges were draped in black hoods and deported to China upon their acquittal in April, according to Amnesty International, which expressed fears they would face human rights violations there.
Communications between Taiwan and the mainland have been suspended since May when President Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party, which has historically been more sceptical of closer ties with China, took office.
Chinese authorities said they were suspected of telecoms fraud which targeted people in mainland China, and should be tried in China.
The ministry said that since the acquittal of the five Taiwanese on Friday, staff members from the Taipei Liaison Office in the Republic of South Africa had repeatedly demanded that Kenyan police honor the court’s verdict and had sought assistance from foreign media and global human rights groups.
In the letter, Chen requested that the Kenyan government abide by the ruling issued by its own court, which states that “the accused persons be repatriated back to their countries” and specifies that the five Taiwanese must be deported to Taipei.
Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), its top China policy-making body, said it lodged a protest with Beijing over the latest round of deportations.
But after numerous suspects faced little more than slaps on the wrist in Taiwan, China began taking a more active role by working directly with the third country to tackle the fraud rings mostly composed of Taiwanese and Chinese nationals.
The president’s spokesman Alex Huang also voiced concerns over the deportations, saying it “violated human rights and worldwide precedent”.
Chinese and Taiwanese citizens who were deported from Kenya arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport on April 13, 2016.
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The ministry subsequently published an open letter addressed to Mohamed that was written by Chen on Saturday, when China reportedly arranged for the deportation of the Taiwanese. The two split amid civil war in 1949.
