The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday called on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to grant former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) medical parole after a magazine reported on the deterioration of Chen’s health.
The DPP Central Standing Committee yesterday reached a resolution to demand that Ma grant medical parole for Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, but has been hospitalized for treatment of various complications.
“We urge President Ma to let former president Chen go home for the Lunar New Year holidays. It’s best for him to be at home with his family during the New Year holidays,” DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told a press conference.
Photo: Chu Pei-hsiung, Taipei Times
Support for granting medical parole has become stronger after 17 city and county councils passed resolutions in support of the move, Su said.
The Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday published an article that cited a 28-second video clip recorded during a visit to see Chen at Taipei Veterans General Hospital, where the former president is undergoing treatment. The report said Chen is suffering deteriorating Parkinson’s disease.
Former DPP lawmaker Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲) admitted on a TV political talk show yesterday afternoon that he recorded the video when he visited Chen, but said that he neither distributed the video clip nor posted it on the Internet.
Led by DPP Legislator Mark Chen (陳唐山), eight DPP and Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislators called a joint press conference yesterday afternoon at the legislature in Taipei, urging the Ministry of Justice to reconsider Chen’s application for medical parole.
If former Executive Yuan secretary-general Lin Yi-shih (林益世), who has been bailed after being indicted on corruption charges, has been able to return to his Kaohsiung home for the Lunar New Year, the former president should receive the same treatment, Mark Chen said.
In Kaohsiung, Chen Chih-chung (陳致中), the former president’s son, said he did not mind Twu recording his father without prior consultation with the family. He said he hoped that medical parole could be granted to his father, who is battling mental illness.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS