Muslims in Taiwan gathered at the Taipei Grand Mosque yesterday and on Sunday to hold an auction to raise funds to assist Indonesian and Palestinian Muslims. Yesterday, they also celebrated the Eid-al-Adha religious festival.
"The amount of money raised may not be much, but it symbolizes our sincerity in reaching out," said Ting Nai-hsin (
The two-day auction attracted thousands of Muslims and non-Muslims, diplomats from ten countries, and representatives from the foreign ministry and Taipei City Government.
Diplomats from Indonesia and Jordan expressed their gratitude to the organizers of and participants in the event.
Eid-al-Adha, the festival of sacrifice, commemorates Abraham's willingness to obey God by sacrificing his son; it concludes the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca.
"This auction was organized to support Palestinian and Indonesian refugees, who are living in bad conditions, suffering because of political and natural causes such as earthquakes," said Bilal N. Hmoud, director of the Jordanian Commercial Office.
"I was indeed heartily surprised when the Taipei Grand Mosque came to me two weeks ago to raise the idea [of hosting this auction]," said Danny H. Kusumapradja, director of immigration and consular affairs at the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office in Taipei.
Organizers said they were focusing on Palestinian and Indonesian Muslims because of the recent earthquake in Indonesia that left tens of thousands of Muslims homeless and because of the plight of the Palestinians in the face of violent confrontations with Israel.
A recent UN report found unemployment in the territories has tripled to 38 percent and GDP has fallen by half.
Although Arab governments promised several months ago to spend US$1 billion to help the Palestinians, little aid has arrived.
Hmoud, who has visited the Palestinian territories several times, said that "recent incidents in the territories created many problems. One of these problems is Israel's blockade on the movement of workers' from the Palestinian territories to the Israeli side. So a majority of the Palestinians who used to go to Israel to earn their living ended up unemployed."
The funds will be channeled through the Indonesian Economic and Trade Office to Taipei and the Jordanian Commercial Office, organizers said.
As there are currently 80,000 guest workers from Indonesia in Taiwan, 99 percent of whom are Muslims, organizers also urged the government to safeguard their labor rights.
According to the Taipei Grand Mosque, there are approximately 290,000 Muslims in Taiwan.
The Mosque, built with donations from the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1958, was designated a municipal historic site in 1999.
The city government designated it as such to save it from demolition when a cement firm which owned the land planned to tear it down to make room for a development project.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2