Taiwan's Aboriginal people are the victims of political wrangling between Aboriginal legislators, the head of the Council of Indigenous Peoples said yesterday, citing as proof the recent difficulties establishing an Aboriginal television channel.
"The past two and a half years have been really difficult for the Council of Indigenous Peoples," said Chen Chien-nien (
"Out of the 10 Aboriginal lawmakers in the legislature, nine are from opposition parties. Because non-Aboriginal legislators don't tend to concern themselves with Aboriginal issues, these issues all end up being controlled by the 10 legislators," Chien said at the forum, which was sponsored by the political think tank Taiwan Advocates and the Presbyterian Church of Taiwan.
Chien said that the presence of only one ruling party Aboriginal legislator, Chen Tao-ming (陳道明), leaves the council struggling to pass bills against attacks from the majority of the Aboriginal legislators each legislative sitting. As a result, Aboriginal people have fallen between the cracks, he added.
Chien cited difficulties establishing an Aboriginal television channel as an example.
"The budget for the television channel has been going around the legislature for two years now because of disagreements from opposition party Aboriginal legislators," Chien said.
The television station, a brainchild of the council, was originally slated to begin broadcasting next month, but the project became stalled in the last legislative session. While the establishment of the channel has already been approved, funding for the channel has been withheld because of concerns about low reception rates among Aboriginals in mountain areas and a lack of trained personnel.
During his speech yesterday, Chien said that reception rates and staff deficiencies are not serious enough problems to merit not broadcasting.
The council has already collaborated with the Government Information Office (GIO) to make the satellite television signals available throughout Taiwan and set up satellite dishes in mountainous communities, Chien said.
Further, personnel problems can be easily solved over time, he said.
"A certain legislator said that the channel must have a 100 percent Aboriginal staff before broadcasting can begin. That makes no sense; if there is not enough trained personnel, then we can borrow manpower from other places at first and still begin broadcasting," he said, later identifying the opposition legislator as independent May Chin (
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS