Losheng Sanatorium preservation activists, the Austronesian Community College (ANCC) and independent journalist Carol Chang (張桂越) were honored with the first Taiwan Peace Award by the Taiwan Grassroots Alliance for Peace (TGAP) yesterday.
“It took us more than half a year to decide who should receive this award,” TGAP chairman Chen Chien-fu (陳建甫) said at the beginning of the award ceremony in Taipei. “We were looking for candidates who have a global vision, care for the society and take action to change society through peaceful means.”
He added that besides the group and individual awards, the alliance had added a category for the younger generation to encourage them to become socially active.
For the new category, the five members on the panel of judges considered the Youth Alliance for Losheng the best candidate.
“I’d say the young Losheng activists are the most insistent youth social group,” said Huang Mo (黃默), a political science professor at Soochow University who served as one of the judges. “They insist on pursuing every last bit of social justice in our society, they never give up, they’re the younger generation with ideas, appreciation, and a sense of justice.”
Founded nearly four years ago, members of the alliance put a lot of effort into preserving the Losheng Sanatorium, a Taipei County sanatorium complex built during the Japanese colonial period to isolate patients with Hansen’s disease (also known as leprosy). The government has selected the sanatorium campus as the site of a Mass Rapid Transit maintenance depot and originally planned to flatten the entire sanatorium.
After years of debates, protests, and demonstrations, the government finally decided to preserve part of it as a historic site.
“We don’t really deserve this award, it should be presented to the elder Losheng residents who have been insisting on their right to live as they wish since around 10 years ago, before outsiders like us joined their struggle,” alliance member Ho Hsin-chieh (何欣潔) said in a pre-recorded video as she could not attend the ceremony because of personal reasons.
“The entire Losheng campaign should inspire the public that everyone — not just the powerful or the rich — can make a difference if they care to make an effort,” she said.
Chang, on the other hand, received the award for efforts to raise public awareness on international refugee issues, wars and conflicts through documentaries and news reports.
Chang lived in the Balkans for seven years, recording frontline scenes of wars and ethnic conflicts. She has also shot a documentary on the work of agriculture teams in Africa.
“I’m embarrassed to accept this honor,” Chang said. “I’m a journalist and I’m just doing what I’m supposed to do.”
Meanwhile, the ANCC was selected for “efforts to search for the roots of Taiwanese Aborigines, to pass on the culture and create a peaceful community,” said Chen Li-man (陳麗曼), another judge and chairwoman of the National Union of Taiwan Women’s Associations.
The ANCC, located in Taitung County, has successfully helped to preserve and revive a traditional local Amis sampan contest and organized local Aborigines to join together in a campaign against a development project that may harm the local ecosystem.
“A community college should not be only an educational institution,” ANCC founder Liu Chiung-hsi (劉炯錫) said.
“The first lesson that everyone should learn is to stand up for yourself and not to wait for the government’s help,” Liu said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS