The Greater Taichung Council on Friday passed a motion calling for the release of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) for medical treatment as soon as possible.
Chen, who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison term for corruption, was diagnosed with acute coronary syndrome in early March and granted temporary release from Taipei Prison to receive treatment.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taichung City councilor Ho Ming-cheng (何敏誠), who initiated the motion, said its passing is a manifestation of the Greater Taichung Council’s strong democratic disposition and the importance it attaches to human rights.
In most democratic nations when former heads of state are under investigation, the judicial authorities usually implement house arrest or movement restriction to make sure investigations go smoothly and leaders are either jailed only after being found guilty in final verdicts, Ho said.
However, Chen was detained for several years during the prosecutorial investigations, a move which was politically motivated and ran contrary to the practice of democratic countries, Ho said.
Twenty-three DPP councilors, one Taiwan Solidarity Union councilor and two independent councilors endorsed the motion. Because the council’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) majority kept quiet during the action, the proposal was able to be approved.
When reached for comment, KMT council caucus whip Huang Hsin-hui (黃馨慧) said the pary had not even noticed the motion when reviewing council agenda, but added that since it had been approved, “[we might as well] let DPP colleagues have a chance to perform.”
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS