The manner in which the government is handling the reconciliation process with the families of the victims of the 228 Incident is counterproductive and will most likely brew more tension if the administration refuses to take genuine action that shows contrition, said Taiwanese-Americans who gathered at Liberty Square and the 228 Memorial Park on Saturday to mark the 62nd anniversary of the massacre.
May Huang, one of the Taiwanese-Americans, said although none of her family members were harmed in the 228 Incident, “it left a huge wound on Taiwan’s history and it will never heal unless the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] stops concealing the truth and takes real steps to pay for their mistakes.”
A Taiwanese-American man surnamed Liu from California said that Taiwan would never become a true democracy unless the government was willing to face the truth.
“Hiding the facts will only trigger more hatred and misunderstanding. Didn’t the government say they want to have a peaceful solution to end all the disputes? How do they expect to settle the differences if nothing is ever talked about,” he said.
More than 1,000 people attended a sit-in held by the Taiwan Association of University Professors on Saturday to remember the bloody massacre carried out by the authoritarian KMT regime on Taiwanese 62 years ago.
The 228 Incident was ignited on Feb. 27, 1947, when government agents assaulted a Taiwanese woman selling cigarettes on the streets of Taipei.
It marked the beginning of the White Terror period during which a large number of intellectuals were murdered, tortured or jailed.
An Israeli student, speaking on condition of anonymity, said leaving the truth behind would not help Taiwan become a bona fide nation, criticizing the 228 Memorial Museum for providing little information on the massacre and concentrating on external factors that led to the bloodbath.
Spanish student Regina Martinez said she learned about the 228 Incident during her time at the Autonomous University in Madrid.
“I think it is a very sensitive issue,” Martinez said. “I hope the government can recognize the mistake so the entire nation can move on. It is an important piece of Taiwanese historical memory.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching