Nearly 100 residents of Taipei’s Huaguang Community (華光社區) and their supporters yesterday clashed with police outside the Executive Yuan during a protest against a forced demolition of their houses scheduled to take place next week.
“Premier, come out,” the residents and their supporters chanted as they pushed forward and clashed with police officers holding riot shields.
“The land on which our community stands used to be unwanted, but now that real-estate prices are going up, we’re facing forced eviction,” Chu Yi-chen (朱義珍) said. “We are not trying to make some illegal profits, we just want a home where we may stay without any worries.”
Photo: CNA
The residents are angry because despite their protests and petitions, the government has decided to start the demolition on Thursday and has filed lawsuits against residents for “illegally profiting” by occupying government property.
Chen Wei-hui (鄭偉慧), a resident and spokesman for the movement to save the community, said that in addition to some people who have lived in the community for generations, most of the residents are low-ranking soldiers who retreated to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime in 1949 after it lost the Chinese Civil War against the Chinese Communist Party.
“They came with the KMT government, they had nowhere to stay and were told that they may settle where they live now because the government had nowhere else to settle them,” Cheng said. “Despite the living conditions, most of the residents and their families have lived in the community for decades without any problems, they are provided with electricity and water, and they pay taxes.”
“All of a sudden, they are told to leave without any settlement plan — although the Taipei City Government once promised them a new community — and those who are unwilling or unable to move are being sued and will have to pay millions of New Taiwan dollars in compensation to the government,” Cheng said. “How does that make any sense?”
Not having received a positive response from the government, the protesters vowed to launch larger protests on the days the demolitions are scheduled.
Separately yesterday, the Taipei City Government said it would provide public housing units for Huaguang Community residents and help them with their relocation.
Taipei City Government spokesman Chang Chi-chiang (張其強) said the city government would take the initiative to offer 57 public housing units in Nankang District (南港) and Shilin District (士林) to residents of the community and would relax limitations on applications to help the residents settle in their new homes.
The Taipei City Government’s Department of Urban Development has given information about the housing units to the central government, and the city government would start preparing to move people after the central government provides a list of eligible applicants, Chang said.
“The city government has also urged the Executive Yuan to delay the demolition of the community until the city government comes up with a relocation plan,” he said.
Chien Se-fang (簡瑟芳), a division chief in the department, said the department would relax regulations on applications for the public housing as most of the residents are aged 45 years and older.
The regulations on the public housing rentals state that applicants must be between 20 and 45 and have their household registered in Taipei. The applicants should also be recently married and have children, and should not own any property, while their annual income must be less than NT$1.7 million.
Chien said the department would ignore the regulations relating to age and marital status for residents of the community, and would assist eligible applicants moving to public housing units.
The monthly rent of the housing units ranges from NT$12,500 to NT$13,800.
The city government would also help six low-income families move to low-cost housing units in Wenshan District (文山) and Wanhua District (萬華), she said.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
RSS