In reaction to a series of recent misdemeanors by lawmakers — including physical and verbal clashes that occurred on Wednesday — lobby group Citizens Congress Watch (CCW) yesterday called on the legislature to set up a Gender Equality Committee and strengthen the role of the Disciplinary Committee.
“The incident yesterday [Wednesday], in which Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] Legislator Lee Ching-hua [李慶華] verbally abused Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chiu Yi-ying [邱議瑩] that resulted in Chiu slapping him, was not an isolated incident,” CCW executive director Ho Tsung-hsun (何宗勳) said as the group demonstrated outside the legislature. “It was one of what we consider six major cases of legislators overstepping their bounds since this legislature was inaugurated [in February last year].”
The other incidents included one in which KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) said that the birth rate was too high among lower class people and that their children would only end up homeless. In another, KMT Legislator Lu Chia-chen (盧嘉辰) said that the only way to make Chiu happy was to get her a husband.
PHOTO: CNA
“I’m very disappointed with the lawmakers we elected — they need to work harder not only at their jobs, but also to watch what they say and improve their sense of gender equality,” said Kao Ru-ping (高如萍), deputy secretary-general of the National Association for the Promotion of Community Universities.
To keep lawmakers from misbehaving, CCW chairman Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) suggested that the legislature create a Gender Equality Committee, strengthen the role of the Disciplinary Committee and reconsider lawmakers’ immunity from legal action over what they say in legislative sessions.
“The Disciplinary Committee is often in the hands of the majority party — the rules should be revised so that no party can hold more than 50 percent of the seats on the committee so that it can operate more fairly,” Ku said. “There were reasons at the time when lawmakers were granted immunity for what they say during legislative meetings — I think it’s already time to reconsider the application of that immunity.”
In related news, Chiu yesterday continued to lambaste the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for its “verbal violence” following Wednesday’s altercation.
“The KMT, along with some pro-unification media, are conducting a massive smear campaign to make me look like the ‘Queen Bee of the Mafia,’ but anyone that knows me knows I am not that kind of person,” she said.
Chiu said sometimes verbal abuse could cause more damage than physical assault.
She also panned accusations from the KMT that she used her beauty to advance her political career.
“Do I have a choice what kind of face I have?” she said, adding the matter was no longer an issue in her opinion, but she would reserve the right to pursue legal action.
Additional reporting by Jenny W. Hsu
UNDER WATCH: Taiwan will have to establish a standardized nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus and monitor its spread, the CDC said The Langya henipavirus, which can be transmitted from animals to humans, has been discovered in China, with 35 human infections reported so far, Taiwan’s Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said, adding that the nation would establish a nucleic acid testing method to identify the virus. A study titled “A Zoonotic Henipavirus in Febrile Patients in China” that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday said that a new henipavirus associated with a fever-causing human illness was identified in China. The study said an investigation identified 35 patients with acute infection of the Langya henipavirus in China’s Shandong
BILINGUAL PLAN: The 17 educators were recruited under a program that seeks to empower Taiwanese, the envoy to the Philippines said The Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in the Philippines on Thursday hosted a send-off event for the first group of English-language teachers from the country who were recruited for a Ministry of Education-initiated program to advance bilingual education in Taiwan. The 14 teachers and three teaching assistants are part of the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which aims to help find English-language instructors for Taiwan’s public elementary and junior-high schools, the office said. Seventy-seven teachers and 11 teaching assistants from the Philippines have been hired to teach in Taiwan in the coming school year, office data showed. Among the first group is 57-year-old
‘ORDINARY PEOPLE’: A man watching Taiwanese military drills said that there would be nothing anyone could do if the situation escalates in the Taiwan Strait Many people in Taiwan look upon China’s military exercises over the past week with calm resignation, doubting that war is imminent and if anything, feeling pride in their nation’s determination to defend itself. After a visit to Taiwan last week by US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, China has sent ships and aircraft across an unofficial buffer between Taiwan and China’s coast and missiles over Taipei and into waters surrounding the nation since Thursday last week. However, Rosa Chang, proudly watching her son take part in Taiwanese military exercises that included dozens of howitzers firing shells into the Taiwan Strait off
Police have detained a Taoyuan couple suspected of over the past two months colluding with human trafficking rings and employment scammers in Southeast Asia to send nearly 100 Taiwanese jobseekers to Cambodia. At a media briefing in Taipei yesterday, the Criminal Investigation Bureau presented items seized from the couple, including alleged victims’ passports, forged COVID-19 vaccination records, mobile phones, bank documents, checks and cash. The man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and his girlfriend, surnamed Tsan (詹), were taken into custody last month, after police at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport stopped four jobseekers from boarding a flight to Phnom Penh, said Dustin Lee (李泱輯),