Opposition lawmakers yesterday lashed out at Minister of Justice Chen Ding-nan (
Chen, who advised the Cabinet to clear up the matter through legal procedures, maintained he has no intention of denying Sun's stature in history and dismissed the criticism as unwarranted.
"Chen is unqualified for his job by saying he doesn't know who the nation's founding father is," PFP Legislator Chou Hsi-wei (
At Chen's request, the Cabinet on Wednesday staved off a proposal to mark March 12 and Nov. 12 as the days to commemorate the death and birth respectively of the nation's "founding father."
Chen, known for his exactitude in dealing with legal matters, said he could not find any provision stipulating that Sun is the nation's founding father.
He suggested replacing the phrase with Sun's full name in marking the calendar before a law is passed to clarify the issue.
Calling the suggestion an offensive act, KMT Legislator Chiang Yi-wen (江綺雯) urged "conscientious prosecutors" to probe any possible negligence of duty on Chen's part. She pointed out that the Criminal Code outlaws any attempt to damage or vandalize Sun's portrait.
KMT Legislator Chang Tsai-mai (
She noted that there is no law referring to George Washington as the US' founding father, yet Americans never question who their founding father is.
Fellow lawmaker Kwan Yuk-noan (關沃暖) blamed the controversy on former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), who he said aspires to be the founding father himself.
"It is time Lee restrained his disciples from making nonsense," Kwan said.
Chen said that by seeking to codify the founding father, he meant to better ensure Sun's stature in history.
"The term `founding father,' as it is used now, has no legal protection," he said. "If legalized, it would command more esteem and awe from the public and so would the person it refers to."
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching