On Saturday last week, New Power Party (NPP) Executive Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) posted a Facebook message saying that the Stability Power Alliance, which has mounted a campaign to recall him from office, had sent people to shout slogans outside his home and harass his family.
Huang slammed the behavior, saying it was “really going too far,” adding that he would never submit to such malicious measures.
Alliance chairman Sun Chi-cheng (孫繼正) said Huang’s accusation was ridiculous, saying that the group does not even know where he lives.
However, Huang posted a reply contradicting Sun’s claim, a screenshot of a news report with the title: “Huang Kuo-chang recall campaigners collect signatures next to Huang’s home,” and he told the group to stop lying.
“In May this year, media owned by the Want Want China Times Group published this news report as free publicity for the Stability Power Alliance. It clearly demolishes the alliance’s version of events, does it not?” he wrote.
The alliance is a nationwide political organization launched by right-wing Christian churches. Its main founders were Christian supporters of the Faith and Hope League, who first set up its predecessors, the Greater Taipei Stability Power Alliance and Tainan Stability Power Alliance.
The group’s activities aim mainly to recall legislators who support marriage equality, and it is currently conducting recall initiatives against Huang and Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇).
The NPP’s founding declaration should be considered: That everyone in Taiwan has the rights to basic human dignity, to pursue their dreams, defend their happiness and equal status, and to take part in politics and make their own decisions with a sense of identity and belonging as citizens.
The NPP says it wants a Taiwan that everyone admires and that everyone can be proud of.
The NPP calls for equality of the sexes and for everyone’s right to pursue happiness.
However, the Stability Power Alliance is only interested in the “right” to interfere in other people’s freedom of speech in the name of “stability.”
This kind of behavior is reminiscent of the approach favored by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) under martial law, which it imposed on Taiwan from 1949 to 1987.
KMT members and supporters lauded the benefits of martial law, such as that it ensured social “stability.”
It ignored that many people suffered political oppression under former presidents Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) and Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). It glossed over atrocities such as the 228 Incident in 1947, the White Terror of the 1950s and the Kaohsiung Incident in 1989, not to mention the murders of pro-democracy lawyer Lin I-hsiung’s (林義雄) family in 1980, and the killing of democracy advocate Chen Wen-cheng (陳文成) in 1981.
What better word is there to describe the KMT than “hypocrites?”
By opposing the proposed marriage equality law, the Stability Power Alliance openly defines itself as an enemy of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
Does that mean that LGBT people should follow the group’s example by holding protests in front of its headquarters or its chairman’s home?
The Stability Power Alliance needs to think long and hard about the universal principle: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Deng Hong-yuan is an associate professor at Aletheia University.
Translated by Julian Clegg
Two sets of economic data released last week by the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) have drawn mixed reactions from the public: One on the nation’s economic performance in the first quarter of the year and the other on Taiwan’s household wealth distribution in 2021. GDP growth for the first quarter was faster than expected, at 6.51 percent year-on-year, an acceleration from the previous quarter’s 4.93 percent and higher than the agency’s February estimate of 5.92 percent. It was also the highest growth since the second quarter of 2021, when the economy expanded 8.07 percent, DGBAS data showed. The growth
In the intricate ballet of geopolitics, names signify more than mere identification: They embody history, culture and sovereignty. The recent decision by China to refer to Arunachal Pradesh as “Tsang Nan” or South Tibet, and to rename Tibet as “Xizang,” is a strategic move that extends beyond cartography into the realm of diplomatic signaling. This op-ed explores the implications of these actions and India’s potential response. Names are potent symbols in international relations, encapsulating the essence of a nation’s stance on territorial disputes. China’s choice to rename regions within Indian territory is not merely a linguistic exercise, but a symbolic assertion
More than seven months into the armed conflict in Gaza, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to take “immediate and effective measures” to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide following a case brought by South Africa regarding Israel’s breaches of the 1948 Genocide Convention. The international community, including Amnesty International, called for an immediate ceasefire by all parties to prevent further loss of civilian lives and to ensure access to life-saving aid. Several protests have been organized around the world, including at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and many other universities in the US.
Every day since Oct. 7 last year, the world has watched an unprecedented wave of violence rain down on Israel and the occupied Palestinian Territories — more than 200 days of constant suffering and death in Gaza with just a seven-day pause. Many of us in the American expatriate community in Taiwan have been watching this tragedy unfold in horror. We know we are implicated with every US-made “dumb” bomb dropped on a civilian target and by the diplomatic cover our government gives to the Israeli government, which has only gotten more extreme with such impunity. Meantime, multicultural coalitions of US