Hundreds of people — including film director Leon Dai (戴立忍) — have challenged Le Young Construction (樂揚建設) to sue them after the company filed a slander lawsuit against a Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) student.
The student, Huang Hui-yu (黃慧瑜), posted a comment critical of the firm’s actions surrounding an urban renewal project on her Facebook page.
“To Le Young Construction, the following remark, in quotation marks, is exactly the same as the comment that TNUA student Huang Hui-yu wrote on her Facebook page,” Tai said on his own Facebook page.
Photo: Huang Chi-hao, Taipei Times
“I’ve heard that your respected company has filed a slander lawsuit against Huang for the remark. If this is so, please also file a slander lawsuit against me, thank you,” he wrote.
Huang, a graduate student at the TNUA and a member of the Taiwan Alliance for Victims of Urban Renewal, criticized several construction firms that have initiated urban renewal projects — including Le Young — as “notorious” and hinted they have connections to the mafia.
Le Young Construction, which labels itself as “the No. 1 brand in urban renewal,” is the initiator of the urban renewal project in Taipei City’s Shilin District (士林), which involves demolishing a block of decades-old apartments to make way for a 15-story high-rise luxury housing complex.
Although most of the property owners on the block agreed to the project, a family surnamed Wang (王) that owned two homes there refused to take part and wanted to keep their homes.
However, because the Wangs did not express their objections in writing in the project’s initial phase and because more than 75 percent of the property owners on the block agreed to the project, the Wangs’ homes were forcefully demolished on March 28 by a demolition squad sent by the city government. The demolition squad was escorted by more than 1,000 police officers.
According to the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例), the initiator of an urban renewal project may ask the city government to demolish the properties of those who do not wish to take part in the project, as long as three quarters of property owners on the site agree to the project.
On March 28, about 400 people — many of them college students — rallied outside the Wangs’ properties trying to stop the demolition. They were all removed by force and arrested after physical clashes with the police.
Later on, protesters broke down the construction fence and returned to the site where the Wangs’ homes once stood, and continued to protest.
Le Young last week filed lawsuits against Wang Kuang-shu (王廣樹), head of the Wang family, for breaking the fence and against Huang over her criticism of the company.
Immediately after Tai’s Facebook post, supporters of the Wangs launched an activity on Facebook to post the same statement as Huang and Tai, challenging Le Young to sue them as well.
“I can’t do anything with my friends in person to show support for the Wangs since I’m not in Taipei, but it’s a way of expressing my support if I could also be sued,” Benla Kuang (管中祥), an associate professor at National Chungcheng University’s Department of Communications, said on his Facebook page.
Besides posting the statement to invite a lawsuit, Mickey Lin (林彥瑜), a junior student at National Taiwan University’s Department of Politics, said she would like to launch a fundraising drive to hire an attorney for Huang.
“If they [Le Young] crush the students in this battle, there would be less students willing to stand up for injustices in society and more parents would try to stop their children from taking part in public issues,” Lin said on Facebook.
“Students are penniless and powerless, but we have a conscience and passion that could touch many people,” she said.
North Korea tested nuclear-capable rocket launchers, state media reported yesterday, a day after Seoul detected the launch of about 10 ballistic missiles. The test comes after South Korean and US forces launched their springtime military drills, due to run until Thursday. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Saturday oversaw the testing of the multiple rocket launcher system (MRLS), the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said. The test involved 12 600mm-caliber ultra-precision multiple rocket launchers and two artillery companies, it said. Kim said the drill gave Pyongyang’s enemies, within the 420km striking range, a sense of “uneasiness” and “a deep understanding
North Korea yesterday fired about 10 ballistic missiles to the sea toward Japan, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said, days after Pyongyang warned of “terrible consequences” over ongoing South Korea-US military drills. Pyongyang recently dashed hopes of a diplomatic thaw with Seoul, Washington’s security ally, describing its latest peace efforts as a “clumsy, deceptive farce.” Seoul’s military detected “around 10 ballistic missiles launched from the Sunan area in North Korea toward the East Sea [Sea of Japan] at around 1:20pm,” JCS said in a statement, referring to South Korea’s name for the body of water. The missiles
RECOGNITION: Former Fijian prime minister Mahendra Chaudhry said that Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy serves as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific region Taiwan can lead the unification of the Chinese people, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and former Polish president Lech Walesa said in Taipei yesterday, adding that as the world order is changing, peaceful discussion would find good solutions, and that the use of force and coercion would always fail. Walesa made the remarks during his keynote address at a luncheon of the Yushan Forum in Taipei, titled “Indo-Pacific Partnership Prospects: Taiwan’s Values, Technology and Resilience,” organized by the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Walesa said that he had been at the forefront of a big peaceful revolution and “if
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS