Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
DPP Legislator Wang Shu-hui (
However, she said certain criteria should decide who could receive amnesty. Only those who had committed minor crimes, were sentenced to short jail terms, expressed regret for their acts and behaved well in jail should be considered for the amnesty, she said.
Those who commited criminal acts that endangered public security should be excluded, she said.
Wang was asked for comments after Ker said late on Tuesday night that the president should consider granting amnesty on May 20 this year -- the seventh anniversary of Chen's inauguration -- to inmates who had committed minor crimes.
Ker said many caucus members and grassroots supporters of the party hoped Chen would consider an amnesty and begin preparations.
He said an amnesty was worth considering because the nation's prisons were too crowded, but he added that he had not discussed the suggestion with the Presidential Office.
Although Ker and Wang supported the idea of granting amnesty to certain prisoners, two DPP lawmakers expressed skepticism.
When approached for comment yesterday, DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (
Given a recent spate of crimes, granting some prisoners amnesty could upset the public, he said.
"Although it is the president's constitutional authority to grant amnesty, the amnesty must be granted at the right time," DPP Legislator Hung Chi-chang (
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift