President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday stressed the importance of transitional justice, saying that it is the most important step following the democratization of Taiwan.
It is important the nation gets transitional justice right, Tsai said at an event hosted by the Deng Liberty Foundation at Chinpaoshan Cemetery (金寶山) in New Taipei City to commemorate democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕).
“While the world already associates Taiwan with democracy, there is one missing element, namely achieving transitional justice,” she added.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“The process — which is rooted in uncovering the truth, taking responsibility and social reconciliation — is one her administration has long championed,” she added.
The Legislative Yuan passed the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) in December last year. It requires the government to set up a committee to implement transitional justice measures.
The first thing the transitional justice promotion committee would do once established is research what happened when the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime governed the nation under martial law from 1945 until 1992, Tsai said.
The appointed committee nominees are to undergo legislative review before their confirmation.
The committee measures up to the transitional justice teams of other nations, Tsai said, adding that she looks forward to lawmakers’ support of its members.
“Whether Taiwan could be a democratic nation was something Deng cared about deeply,” Tsai said, adding that he would likely find it comforting knowing that Taiwan was ranked among the world’s “free” nations this year in Freedom House’s annual report, in which Taiwan garnered an aggregate score of 93 out of 100, up two points from last year.
On April 7, 1989, Deng, then editor-in-chief of Freedom Era Weekly (自由時代週刊), set himself alight as heavily armed police attempted to break into his office following 71 days of self-imposed isolation after he was charged with sedition for the stance his magazine took against the government after it published a draft Taiwan Republic Constitution in 1988.
In 2016, the Executive Yuan declared April 7 Freedom of Expression Day to commemorate Deng’s death.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS