A group of disabled residents yesterday protested against a new policy by the Taipei City Government which limits free parking for disabled individuals to four hours a day, urging the city to stop the policy and discuss the matter with them.
More than 20,000 roadside parking spaces throughout the city have been provided for free to disabled drivers since 1989. The new policy, which takes effect on Monday, will limit free parking for disabled people to four hours. Motorists with parking permits for disabled people will be required to pay parking fees starting from the fifth hour.
Chanting “Wrong policy. Mandatory order,” several dozen wheelchair-bound protesters gathered outside a meeting room at Taipei City Hall, saying that Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and the city’s Department of Transportation were punishing the disabled with the new policy.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
“[The policy] is a cruel solution to the problem of parking spaces for disabled drivers being over-occupied and it’s not fair to punish all disabled people because a small group abuse their rights,” said Lin Chun-chieh (林君潔), secretary-general of Independent Living Association, a group that advocates for the rights of the disabled.
The city says the policy is aimed at increasing the rate of turnover for roadside parking spaces and preventing permit holders from occupying spaces for lengthy periods of time because they are free.
However, Lin said the new policy would disproportionately harm those who need it most need, because while non-physically handicapped permit holders might be able to easily move their vehicle to another spot after four hours, people with physical handicaps would be forced to pay for their parking.
Department Commissioner Jason Lin (林志盈) defended the new measure as he met the protesters, insisting that the department was trying to make more parking spaces available for disabled drivers.
Those who park within 500m of their workplace can apply for eight hours of free parking at public parking lots, he said.
The comments failed to calm the protesters, who urged the city government to extend free parking to 24 hours.
The commissioner said the department would not make any changes to the new policy, but would evaluate the policy every six months after implementation and invite groups representing the disabled to discuss the issue.
Hau later also met the protesters, but did not promise to halt implementation of the policy.
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