The Taipei District Court yesterday ruled that the Taipei City Government’s alleged forced hospitalization of a homeless man surnamed Ting (丁) on Thursday was flawed, demanding that Ting be discharged immediately from Taipei City Hospital’s Songde Branch.
It is unclear whether Ting had any intention of hurting himself or others at the time of his hospitalization, but Ting was hospitalized against his will and deprived of his personal freedom, which is a breach of the Mental Health Act (精神衛生法), the court said.
The Songde hospital on Friday night said that it had transported Ting back to his usual spot at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in a taxi out of respect for his request to be discharged made in a teleconference with the court earlier that afternoon.
Photo: Hsiang Cheng-chen, Taipei Times
However, questions over the incident remained as statements by Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and the Taipei Department of Health did not seem to match up, adding to the confusion over the incident.
According to a report by the Chinese-language Apple Daily, Ko on Friday said an informant reported Ting to the health department on Thursday. The informant was a classmate of Ting’s from elementary school, Ko said in the report.
“The informant said he [Ting] needed to be hospitalized because he appeared skinnier,” Ko was quoted as saying.
“Did you think the government had nothing better to do than patrol the NCCU campus all day?” he said.
“This was supposed to be a touching story and you reported it as if he had been forced,” Ko said.
However, a statement released by the health department on the same day said there was no informant and that it hospitalized Ting after a check on his wellbeing. The department said Ting was on a list of individuals it routinely checks on.
Footage recorded by a witness showed police on Thursday restraining Ting, who was clearly struggling, on a stretcher before taking him away in an ambulance.
Netizens upset with what they called a breach of human rights launched a Facebook campaign targeting Ko.
The campaign, titled: “Force Ko Wen-je to the hospital. Help Taipei write the most touching story,” was organized by a netizen using the name “Tamsui grandma.”
The Facebook group said that Ko might be mentally unstable, judging by his habits of scratching his head and using the phrase: “That is odd.”
Ko should resign if he loses weight, because it hampers one’s ability to walk on campus, let alone govern a city, the campaign said, in an apparent reference to a health department report that Ting had not eaten in days.
“Borough wardens should arrange more community events to lure the eccentric Ko from his home,” it said, adding that Ko should apologize to Ting and revise the city’s procedures.
Additional reporting by CNA
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
PREPAREDNESS: Given the difficulty of importing ammunition during wartime, the Ministry of National Defense said it would prioritize ‘coproduction’ partnerships A newly formed unit of the Marine Corps tasked with land-based security operations has recently replaced its aging, domestically produced rifles with more advanced, US-made M4A1 rifles, a source said yesterday. The unnamed source familiar with the matter said the First Security Battalion of the Marine Corps’ Air Defense and Base Guard Group has replaced its older T65K2 rifles, which have been in service since the late 1980s, with the newly received M4A1s. The source did not say exactly when the upgrade took place or how many M4A1s were issued to the battalion. The confirmation came after Chinese-language media reported
RSS