Supporters of the democracy movement in Myanmar organized a campaign in Taipei yesterday to voice their support for five female political prisoners, each of whom have been sentenced to 65 years in prison.
The campaign took place at the heart of the busy shopping district outside Zhongxiao Fuxing (忠孝復興) Mass Rapid Transit station.
“The area around Zhongxiao Fuxing station is a shopping paradise for a lot of women. But have we thought that, while many women in Taiwan are happily shopping here, there are other women out there living is horrible conditions, or put in jail by totalitarian regimes on groundless charges?” Amnesty International Taiwan director Wang Hsing-chung (王興中) said as he explained why the location was chosen for the event.
PHOTO: CHANG CHIA-MING, TAIPEI TIMES
The campaign was staged one day before International Women’s Day today because many women in Myanmar live in dreadful conditions, are forced to part with their loved ones and are tortured in dark prison cells, like the five female political prisoners who were arrested after taking part in a protest against the Myanmar military junta over skyrocketing oil prices in 2007, he said.
Five women who were in leadership positions during the anti-government demonstration — Mar Mar Oo, Nilar Thein, Sandar Min, Thet Thet Aung and Thin Thin Aye — were arrested in 2007 and 2008, and each was sentenced to 65 years in prison.
Unlike other campaign gatherings that involve slogans or marching, yesterday’s campaign featured music performances and postcards with lip prints that were sent to the military regime. The audience and passers-by were asked to sign their names on a pre-written postcard asking for the release of the political prisoners, and to either leave their own lip prints or stamp the postcards with a lip print stamp.
“We usually associate lip prints with women, and the lip print on a postcard with a powerful message to the military junta symbolizes the women’s power,” Taiwan Free Burma Network spokesman Yang Tsung-li (楊宗澧) said. “We want the dictator to feel the power of women.”
A man surnamed Yang (楊), who was meeting his friend at the MRT station, agreed to sign a postcard after an activist explained to him what had happened to the five women.
“I don’t know who these five women are, but I know they’ve done something right and I’d always support people who represent justice,” he said.
Khim Ohmar, one of the student leaders in a massive anti-Myanmar-government demonstration in 1988 and now still working to promote democracy in Myanmar from exile in Mae Sot, Thailand, also appeared at yesterday’s event.
She said that seeing so many people in Taiwan working to raise public awareness on the situation in Myanmar gave her more energy and hope.
She also expressed her hope that the Taiwanese government could give the freedom movement in Myanmar a hand.
“Tell your [Taiwan’s] government to send the message to China: Stop supporting the military regime and stop sending firearms to the military government,” Khim Ohmar said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS