Tens of thousands of people braved the rain yesterday afternoon to take part in nationwide demonstrations calling for an end to nuclear power plants in Taiwan.
The protests, staged three days ahead of the third anniversary of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster in Japan, took place simultaneously in Taipei, Greater Taichung, Greater Kaohsiung and Taitung.
The National Nuclear Abolition Action Platform — the event’s organizer, an alliance of more than 100 civic groups — demanded that the government immediately halt construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮) and remove nuclear waste from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼).
Photo: EPA
The group asked lawmakers to cut the budget allocated for the new plant, pass a resolution calling for an end to nuclear power and amend the Referendum Act (公民投票法) to lower the referendum threshold.
In Taipei, a woman using a wheelchair held a handmade sign that read: “In a nuclear disaster, people in wheelchairs cannot escape,” while gender and gay rights advocacy groups held rainbow-colored signs that read: “We want orgasms, not nuclear waste” and “We may not have the same sexual preference, but we have the same anti-nuclear opinion.”
Dozens of young people danced to loud electronic dance music as they paraded while shouting: “My electro music does not want to use electricity generated by nuclear energy; my party does not fear oppressive authority.”
Photo: Huang Chih-yuan, Taipei Times
“How can I not stand up today,” said a 76-year-old fisherman surnamed Lu (盧) from New Taipei City’s Jinshan (金山), adding that he has lived in Jinshan all his life, with his home only about 5km from the plant, between two operating nuclear power plants.
“I didn’t know there were so many spent fuel rods in the plants until we had the chance to visit one of them, and I became worried, because the spent fuel pools are almost full. Will they take the fuel rods out of the water?” Lu said. “We have nowhere to run to if a disaster occurs and Taipei will be in danger.”
A highlight of the parade yesterday took place at the intersection of Zhongxiao W Road and Zhongshan S Road, where a group of residents living near nuclear facilities, young people, artists and civic groups stopped traffic by lying or sitting down on the road, as a fake nuclear accident siren sounded.
Photo: Hsu Kuo-chen, Taipei Times
The action prompted police intervention.
Green Citizens’ Action Alliance secretary-general Tsuei Su-hsin (崔愫欣) said that since the Fukushima Dai-ichi accident, annual anti-nuclear parades in Taiwan held in 2011, 2012 and last year all showed that most of the public are against nuclear power.
“The government is still stubbornly ignoring public opinion. When it wanted to push nuclear power, it said the policy was already decided and it was only acting according to the law, so people living near the facilities had no right to refuse. Now the government is using our tax money to threaten and lie to us, when it should communicate with the public and let us decide,” she said.
Tsuei said this year will be the beginning of a “citizens won’t cooperate” movement, which would make an oppressive government understand that “Taiwan doesn’t want nuclear power, the people can decide their own future.”
According to the event’s organizers, the Taipei protest drew more than 80,000 people, while other rallies held simultaneously across the country had a combined turnout of more than 50,000.
The nation has three active nuclear power plants that generate about 20 percent of its electricity.
The state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) yesterday said that the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant will meet the highest safety standards before beginning operations.
Taipower vice president Chen Pu-tsan (陳布燦) said a safety review of the plant’s 126 systems is expected to be completed by the end of June, after which a report will be submitted to the Atomic Energy Council for review.
Chen stressed that passing safety inspections is just one of 75 requirements that the power plant needs to meet before fuel rods can be installed in its No. 1 reactor.
Additional reporting by AFP and CNA
The combined effect of the monsoon, the outer rim of Typhoon Fengshen and a low-pressure system is expected to bring significant rainfall this week to various parts of the nation, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The heaviest rain is expected to occur today and tomorrow, with torrential rain expected in Keelung’s north coast, Yilan and the mountainous regions of Taipei and New Taipei City, the CWA said. Rivers could rise rapidly, and residents should stay away from riverbanks and avoid going to the mountains or engaging in water activities, it said. Scattered showers are expected today in central and
COOPERATION: Taiwan is aligning closely with US strategic objectives on various matters, including China’s rare earths restrictions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Taiwan could deal with China’s tightened export controls on rare earth metals by turning to “urban mining,” a researcher said yesterday. Rare earth metals, which are used in semiconductors and other electronic components, could be recovered from industrial or electronic waste to reduce reliance on imports, National Cheng Kung University Department of Resources Engineering professor Lee Cheng-han (李政翰) said. Despite their name, rare earth elements are not actually rare — their abundance in the Earth’s crust is relatively high, but they are dispersed, making extraction and refining energy-intensive and environmentally damaging, he said, adding that many countries have opted to
FORCED LABOR: A US court listed three Taiwanese and nine firms based in Taiwan in its indictment, with eight of the companies registered at the same address Nine companies registered in Taiwan, as well as three Taiwanese, on Tuesday were named by the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) as a result of a US federal court indictment. The indictment unsealed at the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, said that Chen Zhi (陳志), a dual Cambodian-British national, is being indicted for fraud conspiracy, money laundering and overseeing Prince Holding Group’s forced-labor scam camps in Cambodia. At its peak, the company allegedly made US$30 million per day, court documents showed. The US government has seized Chen’s noncustodial wallet, which contains
SUPPLY CHAIN: Taiwan’s advantages in the drone industry include rapid production capacity that is independent of Chinese-made parts, the economic ministry said The Executive Yuan yesterday approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion (US$1.44 billion) into domestic production of uncrewed aerial vehicles over the next six years, bringing Taiwan’s output value to more than NT$40 billion by 2030 and making the nation Asia’s democratic hub for the drone supply chain. The proposed budget has NT$33.8 billion in new allocations and NT$10.43 billion in existing funds, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Under the new development program, the public sector would purchase nearly 100,000 drones, of which 50,898 would be for civil and government use, while 48,750 would be for national defense, it said. The Ministry of
RSS