Press & Interviews — Ross Cline
Press & Interviews
Ross Cline 柯受恩
For podcast hosts, journalists, researchers, and legislators. Everything on this page can be verified against the documents linked at the bottom.
Ninety seconds, recorded in Phnom Penh, September 2026.
What I say in the video
My name is Ross Cline. In 2019, during a dispute with my landlord in Taiwan, I posted my own signed lease online for two days. I do not dispute that. Taiwan enforces its privacy law criminally, and I was sentenced to six months in prison. I cannot read Chinese. Taiwan's own law required a court interpreter for me. Across four years, no interpreter was ever appointed and no document was translated. Taiwan's Supreme Prosecutors Office confirmed both facts in writing in December 2025, and in the same letter refused to reopen the case. My summons literally says: if you do not read Chinese, bring your own translator. My only interpreter was a chatbot. I now live in Phnom Penh, because going home means prison. I am not asking you to say a court was wrong. I am asking for thirty minutes on your show to walk through the documents. Everything is at rosscline.com/pages/press.
Correction, 20 September 2026. The video was recorded before I had checked the court file against my own memory. Two things in it are imprecise and the written sections below are the current, checked version: the courts' finding is 2021, not 2019; and the interpreter failure was not total. Some hearings were held with no interpreter at all, at others the person sworn as interpreter conveyed, by my account, a fraction of what was said, and no document was ever translated. The Supreme Prosecutors Office did not dispute this; "confirmed" overstates its letter.
Who I am
I'm Ross Cline (柯受恩), a Canadian from Deer Island, New Brunswick. For fifteen years I ran an English school in Taichung, Taiwan, and taught more than a thousand Taiwanese children. I loved the place enough to begin naturalization. I now live in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, because going home to Taiwan means prison.
The story in sixty seconds
The dispute began with a shop gate that fell in November 2020, which I had asked my landlord to repair; two Taiwanese television stations, TVBS and EBC, filmed it. The courts found that in 2021, during that dispute, I posted online documents containing her personal data, including our lease, and that some of the material stayed online for months; my own account is that the lease was up for about two days and that the witnesses I applied to call on that point were never summoned. Taiwan enforces its Personal Data Protection Act criminally: six months in prison, final at the Supreme Court in October 2024. I could not read the judgments and learned their findings only in September 2026. I am not asking anyone to retry the facts.
I cannot read Chinese. Taiwan's own law has required a court interpreter for defendants like me since 2020. No document in the proceedings was ever translated for me. Some hearings were held with no interpreter at all; the court's own file records an evening hearing that went ahead after the judge asked me, in Chinese, whether I understood Chinese. At others the person sworn as interpreter conveyed, by my account, a fraction of what was said. On 22 December 2025 the Supreme Prosecutors Office did not dispute any of this when it refused to reopen the case; it reasoned that legal-aid counsel's presence at first instance was enough. That counsel did not interpret, and I had no counsel on appeal. In April 2026, Taiwan's National Human Rights Commission reported that the failure is systemic, borne mainly by Southeast Asian migrant workers. My summons prints, in Chinese: "If you do not read Chinese, please bring your own translator." My only interpreter was AI chatbots.
「如不識中文請自行偕同翻譯到場協助」
"If you do not read Chinese, please bring your own translator."
Why I did not simply pay and stay
Five things I can talk about
What is documented
What I will not claim on your show
Formats and logistics
Video or audio, any platform, any hour (Phnom Penh, UTC+7). Fluent English; conversational Mandarin, and I can arrange a Mandarin interpreter for Chinese-language shows. Documents can be shared on screen. No fee sought, no approval over questions requested.
Book an interview →Book directly: rosscline.com/pages/calendar
Email: rosscline@gmail.com
Phone / WhatsApp: +1 (506) 321-8659
Where the story has appeared
JURIST published my commentary on 29 September 2026: “When Court Interpretation Failed in Taiwan, I Turned to a Chatbot”. Magdalene (Indonesia) published my op-ed for Indonesian workers in Taiwan and their families on 8 October 2026: “Bring Your Own Translator? What Taiwan’s Law Actually Promises Indonesian Workers”. Also accepted: The NAJIT Observer, the blog of the U.S. National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (in editing); Humanising Language Teaching (Pilgrims; scheduled for 2027); Escape Artist (forthcoming). A feature for The ATA Chronicle, written to a scope agreed with its editor, was delivered on 2 October 2026 and is under review; an essay for MultiLingual magazine, delivered on 7 October 2026, is under review. The case is before members of the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights of Canada and the House of Commons Subcommittee on International Human Rights, and an e-petition to the House of Commons, sponsored by my MP, has gathered its five supporters and is with him for authorization.
On 7 October 2026 the record was the case example at the Asia Fair Trial Practices Roundtable convened by BABSEACLE and the Centre for Law and Transformative Change; the organisers circulated my case-study material as the session's reading and I spoke to it. An open letter to Taiwan's Judicial Yuan from scholars of interpreting, forensic linguistics and criminal justice — asking for three things: a published count of Article 99 interpreter appointments, a fixed field for interpreter presence in every hearing record and judgment, and the quality check the National Human Rights Commission recommended in March 2026 — is being convened for delivery on 20 October 2026. Signatories so far: 4, from three countries, and one Taiwanese human-rights association has agreed to endorse it (updated 14 October 2026). Names and institutions will be published after delivery, with each signatory's consent.
Downloads
One-page guest sheet (PDF/Word): available on request by email until it is posted here. Full document index: iLearn.tw/newsbrief. The story in my own words: rosscline.com/blogs/scam.
