Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers yesterday accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of proposing changes to a draft commutation bill that were tailored to benefit a KMT legislator in prison.
In a draft bill submitted by the Cabinet, prisoners serving sentences of up to one year may qualify for an amnesty.
The KMT on Thursday said the cut off point should be extended to include prisoners serving up to 18 months.
"It's clear that the KMT has changed its stance from against the bill to for it, only to help [KMT Legislator] Chiu Yi [
Chiu is serving a prison sentence for violent acts during a protest in Kaohsiung following the 2004 presidential election. Chiu was sentenced to 14 months in prison and started his prison term last month.
Acting on President Chen Shui-bian's (
"The KMT was originally opposed [to the draft bill] ... However, during a cross-party negotiation session yesterday [Thursday], the KMT decided to accept the bill all of a sudden" and suggested changes to the draft, Lai said.
Lai then showed the minutes of a meeting that he said was a closed-door KMT meeting held on Wednesday.
"[We] agree to allow commutation to prisoners serving jail time of up to one year and six months, so that Chiu Yi can be a beneficiary. However, Chiu Yi's name should not be directly mentioned," the meeting log read.
KMT spokesperson Su Jun-pin (
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake yesterday struck off the coast of Hualien, causing brief transportation disruptions in northern and eastern Taiwan, as authorities said that aftershocks of magnitude 5 or higher could occur over the next three days. The quake, which hit at 7:24pm at a depth of 24.5km, registered an intensity of 4 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. In Taipei, the MRT railway’s operations control center received an earthquake alert and initiated standard safety procedures, briefly halting trains on the Bannan (blue) line for about a minute.
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