Hundreds of residents and four local self-help associations in Greater Taichung protested against the expropriation of their land in front of the Greater Taichung Government building yesterday.
Residents from Wenshan (文山) in Nantun District (南屯), Jioshe (舊社) in Beitun District (北屯), Dali District (大里), and Shinan (溪南) in Wuri Township (烏日) are facing compulsory land expropriation for the creation of industrial zones and an expansion of the Taichung MRT depot.
The organizer of the rally, Wenshan Industrial District Paoshan Self-Help Association chairperson Huang Kuo-shu (黃國書), said the government planned to seize land, farmland and houses for a price equivalent to about one-fifth of their current market value.
Photo: Chan Chao-yang, Taipei Times
The 193-hectare Wenshan Industrial District will leave farmers with no home and no jobs, Huang said.
People who own more than 1,620m2 of land are to be reimbursed with an equivalent plot of land at a separate location, while farmers are to receive about 40 percent of the size of their original land at another location, Huang said, as their original land, which is closer to the downtown area, would be seized by the government for a new residential zone, forcing them to relocate to more remote areas.
In addition, Huang said residents were worried that part of the industrial district would be designated as a Type A Industrial Zone, which could increase pollution in the area.
The government passed the responsibility of getting approval by the Environmental Protection Administration’s Environmental Impact Assessment to individual landowners, he said.
Taichung MRT Depot Expansion Zone Expropriation Self-Help Association chairperson Chao Chun-an (趙俊安) said hundreds of households would be uprooted as a result of government plans to expand the depot zone from 19 hectares to 85 hectares.
Shinan Self-Help Association chairperson Chang Huan-chang (張煥昌) said more than 10,000 people living in the 500 hectare area faced land expropriation for industrial use.
It is unfair for illegally built factories to become legal after the area is redesignated as an industrial zone, while small farmers will have no way to make a living because they have no resources or ability to establish factories, Chang said, adding that some residents who relied on loans would have no way to pay them back if they were forced to abandon their farms and houses.
The groups urged the central government to respect the residents’ rights to life and employment, as well as property protection as stipulated by the Constitution, and to amend the Land Expropriation Act (土地徵收條例) to avoid distortion of definitions of public benefit, which they say is often used as an excuse for land expropriation.
The groups also urged the city government to halt the land expropriation plans to protect agriculture in Taiwan, adding that food self-sufficiency and environmental protection are becoming increasingly important.
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