A former chairman of the opposition Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said Friday that jailed former President Chen Shui-bian is being detained because of suspicions he has been engaged in corruption, and that his hunger strike will not make him a political prisoner.

Shih Ming-teh, who served as DPP chairman between 1994 and 1996 before quitting the party in 2000, told reporters that Chen "trampled the dignity of the Taiwanese people and betrayed their expectations."

Shih, who launched a unsuccessful campaign in August 2006 to depose Chen from office, said that he originally planned to hold a press conference to comment on Chen's detention -- a result he had long expected -- but found that he was not elated at all when he saw the former president in handcuffs.

Noting that Chen has begun an undeclared hunger strike since Nov. 12 to highlight his claim that his arrest was politically motivated, Shih said that Chen's refusal to take food will not change him from a suspect in corruption and money laundering cases into a political prisoner.

Shih, who was imprisoned for 25 years as a prisoner of conscience during Taiwan's authoritarian era, criticized Chen for claiming that he had information on 75 undisclosed corruption cases in Taiwan that he had learned of during his years as president.

"The best way for him to atone for his wrongdoings is to disclose all that information, and I believe the prosecutors will have to take action," he said.

Chen is under investigation on charges of embezzlement, bribe-taking, money laundering and illegally removing classified documents from the Presidential Office.

He was sent to the Tucheng detention center in suburban Taipei Nov. 12 after a marathon court hearing concluded there was enough evidence to detain him to prevent him from colluding with other co-conspirators.