Vice President Annette Lu (
Chen Che-nan (
The team will research declarations, documents and agreements that have been important in the worldwide international fight for human rights, and will assimilate them into a human rights reference book for Taiwan, Chen said yesterday.
Chen said that the aim is to produce substantial results by Dec. 10, which is International Human Rights Day.
Members of the task force are expected to include the former president of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, Peter Huang (
Former president of the Human Rights Education Foundation Bo Yang (
He said, however, that he was pleased to see that the government had taken action to safeguarding human rights.
"[To advocate] human rights is not to fight against government, but evil," he said, adding that it would be easier to promote education on human rights with the government's help.
The short-term aim of the task force is to urge the Legislative Yuan to ratify the International Law on Human Rights as a domestic law of Taiwan, while the long-term goal is to set up an independent national human rights committee, according to local media reports.
"Every woman should be free of fear and women's rights will be made the top priority of the task force," said Vice President Lu at a seminar held in Kaohsiung yesterday, urging women to actively participate in public affairs.
Lu said that during her term as vice president she would encourage women to pursue their careers and would work with the government to implement social welfare programs which would provide places for working women to leave their children during the day.
In his May 20 inaugural address, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen asked Lu on July 31 to head the task force because she had long fought for the promotion of human rights. The list of members and details of what the task force will do is to be announced by Lu this week.
According to officials, Chen had been very impressed by a recent documentary film on the establishment of a human rights monument on Green Island, off Taiwan's southeast coast, and had then decided to establish a national human rights committee.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique