For years, Taiwan has presented itself to the world as a modern, rights-respecting democracy—an alternative model in a region too often defined by authoritarian drift. Many people, including foreign residents and investors, want that to be true. I certainly did. I lived in Taiwan for more than 15 years, built a life there, and ran an education business in Taichung that served hundreds of students.

Then the courts ended it.

My story began with something painfully ordinary: a landlord dispute. It involved safety issues in my rental unit and escalated into intimidation and conflict. In a short window of fear and urgency, I posted portions of my lease online for two days while seeking advice. That decision became the basis for criminal charges under Taiwan’s personal-data/privacy law.

The case dragged on for years. Ultimately, I received a six-month sentence. My lawyer advised me to leave Taiwan before enforcement became inevitable.

So I did. In December 2024, I left for Canada. I walked away from my home, my business, my community, and the relationships that had become my adult life—because returning could mean jail.

Whatever one thinks about the technicalities of a personal-data law, the broader question is unavoidable: how can a modern legal system impose an outcome so severe that it functionally exiles a long-term resident for what was, at worst, a brief disclosure made during a dispute and under evident duress?

Exile by courtroom is not a metaphor. When the practical effect of a sentence is to force someone out of the country—and keep them out—punishment becomes far more than a number on a piece of paper. It becomes professional annihilation, financial ruin, and forced separation from a life built lawfully over many years.

This raises public-interest issues that should matter to anyone who cares about rule of law, proportionality, and institutional credibility.

Three public-interest issues

First, proportionality. A justice system earns trust when punishment matches conduct and intent. But when punishment becomes catastrophically disproportional—so harsh that it destroys a life and removes a person from a society—it signals something more troubling than “accountability.” It signals arbitrariness.

Second, due process in practice, not theory. In contentious cases, context is everything: the surrounding intimidation, the imbalance of power, the realities of a resident navigating a system in a second language, and the real-world consequences of a conviction. When essential context is treated as irrelevant—or when credibility is assessed through a lens of “remorse” rather than facts—the process may be lawful on paper while still failing the basic standard of fairness people expect from a democracy.

Third, the remedy problem. What recourse exists when local remedies are exhausted and your own government refuses to engage with treaty-level concerns at all, characterizing everything as “a foreign legal matter”? My experience has been that procedural deflection can make a rights claim disappear without ever being substantively assessed.

These questions are not abstract. Taiwan is proud—understandably—of being viewed as a human-rights leader in Asia. It seeks investment and international legitimacy. But those claims are only as strong as the hardest cases, not the easiest ones.

A system is not proven fair when it treats ordinary citizens well under ordinary circumstances. It is proven fair when the person before the court is inconvenient: a foreign resident without powerful connections, someone in conflict with locals, someone who alleges intimidation and necessity, someone who insists the punishment does not match the alleged act.

In my case, the law as applied removed me from Taiwan as surely as a deportation order would have. That should concern anyone considering Taiwan as a stable place to build a life or invest. Legal predictability and humane proportionality are not optional extras; they are the foundations of confidence.

This should also matter to Americans and other international partners. Taiwan’s international reputation is not merely branding. It affects investment decisions, political partnerships, and the credibility of Taiwan’s democratic identity. If a long-term resident can be pushed out through a process that appears unreasonably harsh—and indifferent to coercion and safety concerns surrounding the dispute—that is a warning sign to any outsider thinking, “This is a safe place to build.”

I have tried, repeatedly, to find a pathway to remedy that does not rely on public embarrassment. I have contacted legal clinics, human-rights organizations, and official channels. In Canada, the response has largely been that this is outside the scope of meaningful engagement—even when the concern raised is basic rights standards and the catastrophic human consequences of an allegedly disproportionate outcome.

So what is left? Increasingly, journalism.

Public scrutiny is not a substitute for law. But when institutions are structured to deflect, delay, or narrow every question until the original injustice becomes invisible, scrutiny may be the only lever that remains. If Taiwan wants to be seen as a genuine rule-of-law democracy—and I believe many Taiwanese citizens sincerely do—then cases like mine must be confronted honestly, not dismissed as technicalities.

I have put the primary documents, a timeline, and a core summary in one place so that any editor or journalist can review them independently: iLearn.tw/scam.

Because if a democracy can destroy a resident’s life over a brief, fear-driven act in the middle of a dispute—and then offer no realistic way back—it raises a simple question that should trouble anyone who values the rule of law: When the courts become the engine of exile, who is accountable?