Investigations into the 228 Massacre and White Terror cases should be relaunched because recent controversial comments about the massacre showed that some people are still trying to find excuses for the merciless killings and infringement of human rights, advocates said yesterday.
Independence groups yesterday lambasted Shih Hsin University professor Wang Hsiao-po (王曉波), who said that the killing of 20,000 people by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Nationalist Army in the 228 Massacre was “a small case” compared with the 400,000 killed during Chiang’s campaigns against the Chinese Communist Party in China.
“Making comparisons by numbers of death toll is a violation of the universal value that every life matters. If Wang is right, does it mean that what happened recently in Ukraine, where hundreds of people died in protests, was an even smaller case?” Wu Ching-chin (吳景欽), an associate professor of law at Aletheia University, told a press conference.
While victims and their families in the tragedy were compensated by the government decades later, Wu said the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration has refused to acknowledge its full responsibility in the massacre, which was why Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) would describe the brutal crackdown an “unintentional mistake.”
Lawyer Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎), a member of the Taiwan Forever Association, said comments that denied the existence of the Holocaust or helped conceal the massacre would be a violation of law in 11 European countries, including Germany and Austria.
Wang could sent to jail by saying what he said, if there were similar laws in Taiwan, Huang added.
As Wang also serves on the Ministry of Education’s history curriculum adjustment task force, which is trying to “de-Taiwanize” high-school textbooks, Northern Taiwan Society secretary-general Steve Wang (王思為) said pro-Taiwan groups had three recommendations.
“We call for abolishing the curriculum adjustment, and future adjustments would have to be screened and monitored by the Legislative Yuan,” Steve Wang said.
“Lastly, investigations into the 228 Massacre and other White Terror cases should be relaunched and those responsible identified,” he added.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
Temperatures in some parts of Taiwan are expected to fall sharply to lows of 15°C later this week as seasonal northeasterly winds strengthen, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. It is to be the strongest cold wave to affect northern Taiwan this autumn, while Chiayi County in the southwest and some parts of central Taiwan are likely to also see lower temperatures due to radiational cooling, which occurs under conditions of clear skies, light winds and dry weather, the CWA said. Across Taiwan, temperatures are to fall gradually this week, dropping to 15°C to 16°C in the early hours of Wednesday
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