The Taipei Detention Center yesterday said it would keep a closer watch on former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) after the suicide of former South Korean president Roh Moo-hyun.
The detention center said Chen may know about Roh’s suicide from TV and radio news reports.
Roh jumped to his death on Saturday morning from a cliff in the mountains.
His reputation as a clean politician who fought corruption was damaged a month ago after he was implicated in a graft scandal and questioned by prosecutors.
Roh’s suicide attracted widespread attention in Taiwan, with some expressing concerns that Chen, being in a similar situation, might contemplate suicide.
Not only have the two both been implicated in corruption cases, Roh and Chen share other traits that have drawn attention to the similarity. Both came from poor farming families and were human rights lawyers before going into politics.
In both cases, the graft scandals involved the families of the former presidents.
The detention center yesterday said it would keep a close watch on Chen. He appeared to be emotionally stable and went about his usual activities yesterday, it said.
“[Chen] read newspapers and watched TV in his room,” deputy warden Lee Ta-chu (李大竹) said.
The center stripped Chen temporarily of visitation privileges and confiscated his TV set and radio more than a week ago to punish him for refusing to eat.
Chen held his third hunger strike since being detained, this time in a show of support for a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) protest against government policies.
After Chen drank mishui, the liquid drawn from rice porridge, the center returned his TV and radio.
Chen has been detained at the Taipei Detention Center since Dec. 30 on charges including money laundering, embezzlement and corruption.
He was indicted on Dec. 12 on corruption charges involving nearly NT$500 million (US$14.68 million). He has repeatedly denied the allegations and called the trials a form of political persecution.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS