While the Miaoli County Government said it had demolished historic kilns on its territory earlier this month following advice made at a cultural heritage assessment commission meeting, it recently admitted that the meeting never took place.
The three kilns, located in Miaoli’s Houlong Township (後龍), were surrounded by rice fields and farms.
During the Japanese colonial era, the area was home to a flourishing pottery industry.
As the nation’s economy developed, the old-fashioned labor-intensive kilns that once dotted the area became outdated. They were closed down, demolished or turned into factories producing pottery with modern technology and equipment.
In 2003, however, the county government said it would build a station for the nearby high-speed rail and drew up an urban development project to turn the surrounding area into a transportation hub and high-tech industrial zone.
Facing protests from local historians and kiln preservationists after the last three kilns in the area were destroyed earlier this month to make way for the project, the county government said in a press conference on Jan. 9 that it had done so based on the cultural heritage assessment, which allegedly ruled that the kilns bore no historic or cultural value.
Although Miaoli International Culture and Tourism Bureau Director Lin Chen-fong (林振豐) openly said on several occasions that the demolition was done based on the cultural heritage commission’s assessment, he admitted yesterday that such a meeting never happened.
“We called for a cultural heritage assessment commission meeting [on Dec. 16], but the meeting didn’t happen because an insufficient number of members showed up,” Lin told the Taipei Times during a telephone interview yesterday.
He said that according to the law half of the commission members must be present for a cultural heritage assessment to be held.
Activists who for years have fought for the kilns’ preservation were upset and vowed to take legal action against county officials.
“We will file a complaint against the county government with the Control Yuan,” preservationist Tai Wen-hsiang (戴文祥) said. “We will also file lawsuits against Lin and County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung [劉政鴻].”
“Officials should take their legal, political and historical responsibilities seriously,” he said.
Lin said the county government did not do anything wrong.
“According to the Cultural Heritage Protection Act [文化資產保護法], the local government head has the ultimate authority to make decisions about the handling of cultural heritage sites,” Lin said. “So even if the cultural heritage commission were to rule that the kilns should be preserved, the decision would not be legally binding.”
“The meeting did not happen, but those who showed up that day did inspect the site and said that the kilns were not of enough cultural value to warrant preservation,” Lin said. “So we didn’t lie.”
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was sentenced to six months in prison, commutable to a fine, by the New Taipei District Court today for contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) in a case linked to an alleged draft-dodging scheme. Wang allegedly paid NT$3.6 million (US$114,380) to an illegal group to help him evade mandatory military service through falsified medical documents, prosecutors said. He transferred the funds to Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), the alleged mastermind of a draft-evasion ring, although he lost contact with him as he was already in detention on fraud charges, they said. Chen is accused of helping a
SECURITY: Starlink owner Elon Musk has taken pro-Beijing positions, and allowing pro-China companies to control Taiwan’s critical infrastructure is risky, a legislator said Starlink was reluctant to offer services in Taiwan because of the nation’s extremely high penetration rates in 4G and 5G services, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said yesterday. The ministry made the comments at a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee, which reviewed amendments to Article 36 of the Telecommunications Management Act (電信管理法). Article 36 bans foreigners from holding more than 49 percent of shares in public telecommunications networks, while shares foreigners directly and indirectly hold are also capped at 60 percent of the total, unless specified otherwise by law. The amendments, sponsored by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Ko
The eastern extension of the Taipei MRT Red Line could begin operations as early as late June, the Taipei Department of Rapid Transit Systems said yesterday. Taipei Rapid Transit Corp said it is considering offering one month of free rides on the new section to mark its opening. Construction progress on the 1.4km extension, which is to run from the current terminal Xiangshan Station to a new eastern terminal, Guangci/Fengtian Temple Station, was 90.6 percent complete by the end of last month, the department said in a report to the Taipei City Council's Transportation Committee. While construction began in October 2016 with an
NON-RED SUPPLY: Boosting the nation’s drone industry is becoming increasingly urgent as China’s UAV dominance could become an issue in a crisis, an analyst said Taiwan’s drone exports to Europe grew 41.7-fold from 2024 to last year, with demand from Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression the most likely driver of growth, a study showed. The Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) in a statement on Wednesday said it found that many of Taiwan’s uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) sales were from Poland and the Czech Republic. These countries likely transferred the drones to Ukraine to aid it in its fight against the Russian invasion that started in 2022, it said. Despite the gains, Taiwan is not the dominant drone exporter to these markets, ranking second and fourth
RSS