Several human rights groups yesterday released a joint statement panning former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) over his remarks on Sunday that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) 38-year dictatorship during the Martial Law era was totally justified and that without it, Taiwan would not have become a democracy today.
Hau made the statement defending the KMT’s authoritarian rule during a rally attended by thousands of veteran soldiers at Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on Sunday to commemorate the dead dictator’s birthday yesterday.
“Without the Martial Law period, we wouldn’t have democracy today, without the Martial Law period, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the freedom we have today,” Hau told the crowd, adding that many people these days have misinterpreted history and are making “unjust” assessments of Chiang’s rule.
He went on to say that the Martial Law era had been necessary because the KMT had lost the Chinese Civil War against the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“There were communist spies everywhere in Taiwan, so we certainly had to take harsh measures to protect Taiwan from the Chinese communists,” he said.
Hau said that without Chiang and his “harsh measures,” Taiwan would have been taken over by the CCP in 1949, and would not be able to enjoy freedom and democracy today.
Several human rights groups — including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Taiwan Association for Truth and Reconciliation, the Dr Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation, the Deng Liberty Foundation, the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty, the Humanistic Education Foundation and the Taiwan Labor Front — released a joint statement denouncing Hau and his remarks.
In the joint statement, the groups said that during the 38-year Martial Law period from 1949 to 1987, Taiwanese were deprived of such basic rights as the freedoms of expression and assembly.
According to the Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts during the Martial Law era — a semi-official organization in charge of compensating political victims and their families, as many as 7,000 political cases have been approved and granted compensation, including almost 800 death sentences.
“The comments [that Hau made] were absurd — his praising of the Martial Law period is as bad as praising the criminal acts of Nazi Germany,” the statement said.
“We condemn such regressive remarks, and demand that Mr Hau, as well as the KMT, apologize to political victims, their families and the general public for their repeated absurd remarks,” the statement said.
EXPANSIONIST: China deploys an average of 40 to 50 warships and coast guard vessels daily in the South China Sea, despite pledges not to militarize the region, an official said China is attempting to expand its influence across the First Island Chain and increase pressure on Japan by sending coast guard vessels into waters off of Taiwan under the pretext of maritime negotiations with Japan and the Philippines, a national security official said yesterday. China’s recent actions in the waters east of Taiwan and Japan and the Philippines’ exclusive economic zones (EEZ) are attempts to establish dominance in First Island Chain waters, said the official who declined to be named, adding that this is “expansion disguised as law enforcement.” Framing China’s actions solely as a cross-strait issue is a serious misjudgment that
Through analyzing fossil evidence, a research team at National Taiwan University (NTU) discovered the largest endemic bird to have lived in Taiwan, naming it Pavo miejue, or extinct peafowl (滅絕孔雀). The Mikado pheasant, which is printed on the back of the NT$1,000 bank note, was previously believed to be the biggest endemic bird to Taiwan. The research team’s findings suggest that Pavo miejue lived during the Pleistocene epoch tens of thousands of years ago. It is the first endemic extinct bird species discovered and formally named in Taiwan. The study was coauthored by NTU Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修),
Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport is to suspend its automated Skytrain service connecting Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 starting on July 1 to facilitate connection works for the upcoming Terminal 3, the airport operator said today. Passengers and staff who need to travel between the two terminals after the suspension can instead use the Taoyuan MRT or the airport's 24-hour shuttle bus service, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. The Taoyuan MRT Airport Line directly links the two terminals, while the shuttle buses are to operate around the clock, the company added. The Skytrain provides free transportation between the airport’s two terminals for travelers and
Taiwan ranked 42nd in terms of peacefulness among 163 countries, down five places from last year, according to this year’s Global Peace Index. With an overall score of 1.751, Taiwan dropped from 37th last year, the report published by the global Institute for Economics and Peace showed. The overall score measures a country’s level of peacefulness using 23 quantitative and qualitative indicators across three domains — ongoing domestic and international conflict, societal safety and security, and militarization. While Taiwan ranked 42nd worldwide, it was listed in ninth place among the 19 Asian-Pacific countries in the report, after New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia,
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