If a picture says a thousand words, then what does the lack of a picture say?
Amid the array of political crusades initiated against President Chen Shui-bian (
The council passed a motion to remove Chen's picture from its meeting room.
PHOTO: FANG PIN-CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES
"Chen Shui-bian has lost the people's trust and lost his credibility as president. Hence, the city council should not hang his picture on the wall anymore," Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Lee Chin-yuan (李慶元) said during a general meeting of the council.
The Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) city councilors attacked the motion, which was presented by Lee and New Party Taipei City Councilor Hou Kuan-chiung (
But due to the pan-blue camp's majority on the council, however, the motion was put on the agenda, after which the DPP caucus walked out in protest.
The motion then passed with 27 votes out of 38, as the 10 DPP members were not present and the council speaker does not vote.
Lee had proposed a similar motion in 2004 after Chen was re-elected. He accused Chen of fabricating an assassination attempt to get re-elected.
In response to the Taipei City Council's decision to remove the portrait of the president from the council's meeting room, Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (
Lee said that the president represents and symbolizes the country.
Taiwan has had pictures of the current president in schools and government buildings for many years, and should continue to show the same kind of respect, Lee said.
He added that regulations stipulate that all government buildings and schools must have a display with the national flag hung at the center, Sun Yat-sen's portrait below the flag, and the current president's picture across from it.
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:
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