One case, almost three decades, and still a simple, uncomfortable question: what does the Tai Ji Men story tell us about human rights in today’s Taiwan?
By Alessandro Amicarelli* — If we want to understand the Tai Ji Men case, we inevitably return to one day: December 19, 1996. You will not find it in schoolbooks, and it has not (yet) become a national holiday, but for those who monitor freedom of religion or belief in Taiwan, it marks a clear turning point. On that day, prosecutors and police raided Tai Ji Men. Dr. Hong Tao-Tze, his wife, and several dizi (disciples) were detained. Their detention was not a quiet procedural act: that evening, images of Dr. Hong, his wife, and the disciples were broadcast across national TV, framed and commented on as if they were criminals.
There were no tanks in the streets this time, no curfew, no bodies left in rivers as in darker chapters of Taiwan’s past. But there were detention cells, and a carefully constructed story of fraud and superstition. Someone reading the case files today might find parts of the indictment grotesque, but behind every page were the lives of men and women suddenly taken from their families and homes. They were interrogated for hours under pressure, detained in poor conditions, and exposed to the public in ways that marked their lives long after that moment.
From the very beginning, the core of the case concerned basic rights and how easily they can be set aside and abused. The rights to liberty, security, and humane treatment of detainees—rights later solemnly reaffirmed when Taiwan incorporated the ICCPR into its domestic law—were already at stake. For Tai Ji Men, these rights were not even acknowledged in theory; they were completely ignored and disregarded.
To fully understand the case, we must first understand what Tai Ji Men is. Tai Ji Men is a menpai that teaches qigong, martial arts, and self-cultivation rooted in traditional Chinese culture. Its disciples, called dizi, often describe themselves as an “Energy Family.” They learn from their Shifu, the Grand Master Dr. Hong Tao-Tze. They train, perform, and travel, carrying a message of conscience and peace that lies at the heart of Dr. Hong’s teachings. Within this spiritual relationship, traditional red envelopes offered to the Shifu are a long-established way of expressing gratitude and respect. There are no tariffs, no menu of services; the red envelopes are a gesture deeply rooted in Eastern culture and belief.
However, in the case of Tai Ji Men, the National Taxation Bureau decided to reinterpret this practice and its implications. Based on this new interpretation, it treated the offerings as tuition fees, taxable as the income of a (non-existing) cram school. By challenging this long-standing Taiwanese tradition, something more than a tax category changed. A spiritual practice was reinterpreted and redefined in bureaucratic terms, as if the heart of the Shifu–dizi relationship could be reduced to a commercial transaction.
International human rights bodies, including UN Special Rapporteurs, have repeatedly warned that financial and registration rules can be twisted and misused to the detriment of specific religious or spiritual communities. On paper, the rules may appear neutral, but in practice, they may target only one group, or a few, and become instruments of discrimination. This is also a way to put freedom of religion or belief under pressure, even if no one ever uses the words “ban” or “prohibition.” In practical terms, however, the effect can be the same.
In 2007, after ten long years, Taiwan’s Supreme Court finally acquitted Dr. Hong and the other Tai Ji Men members. No fraud and no tax evasion had ever existed. The judges of the highest Taiwanese court emphasized that the disciples’ offerings were gifts, not taxable tuition, and ordered compensation for the time the defendants had unjustly spent behind bars. In a normal system governed by the rule of law, this is where the story would end. The highest judicial body has spoken, innocence has been confirmed, and life should go on. In the Tai Ji Men case, however, the story did not end there.
What followed shows how a discredited theory can survive in a hidden corner of the state. Despite the Supreme Court’s decision, parts of the tax administration clung to their own narrative. They had issued a series of tax bills based on the “tuition” theory. Bit by bit, and often only after losing in court, the National Taxation Bureau cancelled almost all of those assessments, reducing the payable amounts to zero. It did so step by step, rather than all at once as it should have, as if each correction were a concession rather than a duty following the Supreme Court’s ruling.
Eventually, one by one, all the bills were corrected to zero— except one. The bill for the year 1992 was kept alive, protected by fabricated technical arguments and claims about questionable deadlines. On one side, therefore, stood a Supreme Court ruling that there had been no tax evasion. On the other hand, an administrative body insists that, at least for one year, its view should prevail.
International law does not only require states to hold fair trials; it also requires them to provide effective remedies. Article 2(3)(c) of the ICCPR is explicit: “the competent authorities shall enforce such remedies when granted.” A remedy that leaves the core injustice standing, simply shifting it from the criminal arena to the tax arena, is not a remedy at all. It is a change of scenery that perpetuates the abuse.
The consequences of the NTB’s distorted vision and actions are most clearly seen in what happened to Tai Ji Men’s sacred land. Tai Ji Men purchased land to build a self-cultivation center, a place of spiritual and educational significance. This land became the target of enforcement for the 1992 tax bill. It was seized and nationalized to cover an amount based on a theory the courts had rejected for all other years.
Human rights law protects the peaceful enjoyment of property and prohibits all forms of discrimination. Many religious and spiritual communities in Taiwan receive offerings. They are not treated as commercial businesses. They are not dragged into decades of tax litigation. The persistence of the tax war against Tai Ji Men, long after the criminal acquittal, raises fundamental questions about equal treatment and makes us wonder what lies behind this witch-hunt.
When land considered sacred by a community is nationalized based on a disputed tax bill—especially considering the Supreme Court’s final judgment—we are not discussing a minor administrative dispute. We are touching both property rights and freedom of religion or belief. International bodies usually ask whether such interferences are necessary and proportionate. In this case, given that the alleged tax offense lacked criminal basis and that all the other parallel bills were corrected to zero, the idea that there is a compelling public interest in maintaining that last assessment and keeping that land becomes exceedingly difficult to defend.
It cannot be denied that Taiwan has made significant improvements across many areas since the end of the authoritarian regime. Martial law is gone; people can choose their leaders in free elections, and presidents publicly apologize for wrongs that, for decades, could not even be mentioned. The two main UN human rights covenants have been incorporated into Taiwan’s domestic law despite Taiwan not being a UN member. In several old cases, families have finally received some form of compensation. These are not mere details; they signal a genuine change of era.
But a transition is not complete simply because official reports are published, and museums or memorials are inaugurated. It is also measured by how a society reacts when a case born in the “democratic years” remains unresolved and continues to harm those involved. When we talk about truth, reparation, accountability, and guarantees of non-repetition, we should not think of abstract checklists. We should ask, very simply: do we see these things happening in real cases like that of Tai Ji Men?
In the Tai Ji Men story, some pieces of this puzzle are indeed in place. The Supreme Court has already ruled that there was no fraud or tax evasion, and its judges recognized that the detentions were unjust. But another part of the truth has never been clearly acknowledged: that tax instruments were used as a continuation of the repression. As for reparation, it remains incomplete. The land intended for a self-cultivation center has been taken and not returned, and a straightforward public statement restoring Tai Ji Men’s good name has still not been made. Those responsible for the violence and abuses that sustained the red-envelope taxation campaign have not been required to answer for their actions publicly. As long as this chapter remains unresolved, the solemn words “This must never happen again” remain more a hope than a guarantee.
The Tai Ji Men case has now become a test for the rule of law in Taiwan. The fact that a tax bill discredited by Taiwan’s highest court still produces effects, that sacred land has not been given back to Tai Ji Men, and that nobody within the system seems to pay a price for ignoring a Supreme Court ruling suggests that Tai Ji Men is not enjoying the same level of protection as others. Scholars sometimes speak of “abusive legalism” when neutral laws are used in practice to achieve discriminatory results. Here, the tools are tax assessments and enforcement procedures. The result is the prolonged continuation of a politically motivated injustice.
For all these reasons, the Tai Ji Men case cannot be described as closed, either legally or morally. The highest courts have already fulfilled their role; what has not followed is a corresponding change in the behavior of the tax authorities and other administrative bodies. The Constitution and the two UN Covenants are part of Taiwan’s legal system, yet their promises have not been fully delivered to this peaceful community. Freedom of religion or belief is still denied by a tax narrative that should have ended years ago. Property rights, equality before the law, and the right to an effective remedy remain compromised as long as the nationalization of the sacred land remains unreversed and the 1992 assessment continues to exist on paper.
Simply repeating that “all legal avenues have been exhausted” is, in this context, little more than a way to avoid responsibility and accountability, because the heart of the problem is not a lack of court decisions but the reluctance of certain offices to obey them. At this point, only a political decision — from legislators, from the executive, or from the head of state — can align administrative practice with what the judiciary and the human rights covenants already require.
We speak about Tai Ji Men, in Taiwan and abroad, as friends of Taiwan. We care about its democratic achievements and understand its vulnerable position in the region, and precisely for that reason, we do not look the other way. Closing the Tai Ji Men case fairly and definitively would not only repair a long-lasting injustice. It would send a strong and simple message to the world: in today’s Taiwan, bureaucrats are not above the Constitution and the courts, and human rights are measured not only in speeches and anniversaries, but in how the state treats one specific minority community that has already heard the word “innocent” from its Supreme Court.
*A paper presented at the webinar “The Tai Ji Men Case: A Human Rights Crisis in Taiwan,” co-organized by CESNUR and Human Rights Without Frontiers on March 24, 2026, United Nations International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of the Victims.
