The Taipei County Government yesterday promised not to demolish the Happy Life Leprosy Sanitarium this year, adding that it would avoid using violence in assisting lepers in settling into a new hospital.
"We understand that the lepers are used to the environment and don't want to move. We will continue to communicate with them," Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (
The sanitarium was supposed to have been torn down to make way for the construction of an MRT line.
Chou made the announcement in response to a protest held by a group of lepers and activists in front of KMT headquarters on Wednesday and yesterday. The protesters demanded that KMT Chairman Ma Ying-jeou (
Some protesters claimed they would stage a hunger strike.
Receiving protesters from the Happy Life Self-help Association at KMT headquarters later on Wednesday night, Ma said that Chou had promised not to force lepers to leave using violent measures.
Chou said yesterday that the county government would not force the lepers to leave, but asked the protesters to take local residents' expectations regarding the construction of the Hsinchuang MRT line into consideration.
Protesters said that Chou should make the promise to association members, who continued their sit-in protest in front of KMT headquarters yesterday.
"We are against being moved by force! Happy Life wants human rights!" they shouted, asking Chou to meet them at the headquarters by tomorrow.
The central government ceded the 17-hectare hillside property on which the leper colony was built to Taipei City for the construction of the Hsinchuang MRT line 10 years ago.
Without the residents' consent or an assessment report on the site's value as a historical landmark, it was decided that the 70-year-old sanitarium was to be demolished, and the more than 300 lepers at the facility were to be relocated to the newly built Huilung Hospital.
Since then, residents have gone through a decade-long odyssey of petitions to different government agencies, including the Taipei County Government, the Council for Cultural Affairs, the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan, in an attempt to block its demolition.
According to the county government, about 41 percent of the sanitarium is defined as "cultural assets."
To preserve the area, the Taipei City Department of Rapid Transit Systems is altering the MRT construction project, it said.
One hundred and seventy-four lepers have moved to the new hospital, and 53 have moved to other communities.
Fifty-two lepers have refused to leave the site.
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