Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member Liu Po-yen (劉柏煙), who set himself on fire to protest the government’s special treatment of Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) last month, died in hospital yesterday.
“Liu had eight skin graft operations over the past month while at National Taiwan University Hospital,” Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳), who has been helping Liu’s family to cover his medical costs, told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.
“Unfortunately, the operations did not seem to be very effective because of Liu’s age,” Tsai continued. “In addition, infection began to set in last week.”
Doctors announced Liu’s death a little after 4am yesterday morning.
Liu, aged 80, set himself on fire on Nov. 11 in Liberty Square as members of the Wild Strawberry student movement staged a sit-in protest against alleged police brutality in cracking down on anti-China demonstrations during Chen’s visit from Nov. 3 to Nov. 7.
In a flyer that Liu handed out to passers-by before setting himself on fire, Liu said that he joined the KMT in 1950.
“I don’t know what the president thinks about what happened lately — I saw people getting arrested by the police for waving the national flag on the street, and I saw nothing happened to police officers who beat people,” he said in the statement. “I heard that 16 civilians have been arrested and may be indicted, I wonder if the police officers who beat up civilians with batons will receive merits?”
Liu also said that he was upset to see President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) being happy to be addressed by Chen as simply “you.”
“I wonder if the president will kneel down to welcome Chinese officials of higher ranks?” he wrote.
KMT Legislator Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) said Liu was not a KMT member, “since he did not reinstate his membership in 2000.”
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
RSS