Mon, Jul 13, 2009 - Page 8 News List

The Act that silences academics

By Chiu Hei-Yuan 瞿海源

After examining each article of the Act, I found half of the articles to be problematic. It is astonishing how careless the legislature can be when drafting laws.

During the Martial Law era, Academia Sinica research fellows and department chairs and college deans at public universities were allowed to harshly criticize the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國).

Since June 10, they have been prohibited from doing so, and after Ma claims the KMT chairmanship, they will not be able to criticize him either!

The administrative impartiality Act reflects the anti-democratic nature of the KMT, which holds all the reins of government. The situation is even worse now than during the Martial Law era because this Act was implemented in the guise of democracy.

Chiu Hei-yuan is a research fellow at the Institute of Sociology at Academia Sinica.

TRANSLATED BY TED YANG

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