Thirty years after a demonstration in Kaohsiung turned into a brutal confrontation between the pro-democracy opposition and the authorities on Dec. 10, 1979, the Kaohsiung City Government is sponsoring a series of commemorative activities to mark the struggle for democracy and human rights.
The Kaohsiung City Government and various civic groups started the commemorative program last month, including seminars, a photograph and archive exhibition, a concert, a two-day symposium starting today and a rally slated for today in downtown Kaohsiung.
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊), one of the opposition activists who attended the rally in front of the Kaohsiung headquarters of Formosa Magazine (美麗島雜誌) and who was arrested and jailed for several years for her part in the Formosa Incident, or Kaohsiung Incident as it is known internationally, visited an exhibition of photos and archives at the former headquarters of the magazine on Thursday.
Looking back over the past 30 years, Chen said she had mixed feelings about the incident and the years that followed, since it was the first time she had stepped into the building that housed the magazine.
Formosa Magazine was created in the summer of 1979 by a group of people calling for an end to martial law and demanding democratic elections and the lifting of a ban on unauthorized newspapers and political parties.
The incident was sparked when magazine staff and opposition politicians held a rally to mark World Human Rights Day in Kaohsiung under tight police surveillance.
Lamenting the fleeting 30 years, Chen said she was grateful toward the land that nourished the aspirations for democracy and freedom, toward the people who came to their protection and defense when they were on trial, and toward the families of those jailed, for their understanding and support.
Some of the Formosa comrades, like late Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Huang Hsin-chieh (黃信介), have died and some have taken different paths, Chen said, adding that she honors the decisions of those who declined to take part in the commemorative activities.
Former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德), for instance, refused to attend, while former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who as a young lawyer represented some of those put on trial by the KMT following the incident, is in detention, conducting an appeal against his life sentence for graft and corruption.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods