The legislature yesterday passed the Special Service Act (特種勤務條例), which governs the operations of special agents, after controversial provisions in the draft version of the bill that opponents said could lead to abuses of power were addressed.
Last week, human rights groups voiced concerns over the draft bill, which gave enhanced powers to the National Security Bureau’s Special Service Center (SSC) to aid their protection of presidents, vice presidents, their spouses and first-degree direct blood relatives, as well as retired presidents and vice presidents.
A clause that would have granted the SSC special judicial authority, allowing it to conduct judicial investigations — a major concern of the rights groups — was removed at the insistence of the Democratic Progressive Party and the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union.
According to the act, special agents at the SSC are allowed to be equipped with firearms when they are on duty and the use of the weapons is subject to four conditions specified by the act and the Use of Police Weapons Act (警械使用條例).
In response to the concerns raised by the rights groups, lawmakers attached a resolution to the new bill saying that the Use of Police Weapons Act and Police Duties Enforcement Act (警察職權行使法) would be examined by the legislature in one year, to bring the rules in line with the UN Human Rights Covenants.
The newly enacted legislation stipulates that special agents can follow rules in the Use of Police Weapons Act and Police Duties Enforcement Act when performing their duties. The latest revisions of the two acts occurred nine years and eight years ago respectively.
Under the current rules, the SSC can coordinate with the Presidential Office’s Department of Security Affairs, the Coast Guard Administration, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau and Military Police Command in its security missions.
The new act authorizes the SSC to also coordinate with the National Police Agency and local police authorities.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching