Collectively initiated by various activists with the aim of pushing for political reform, the Taiwan Citizen Union (公民組合) has finally been approved by the Ministry of the Interior, following several rejections.
Posting a picture of the approval letter from the ministry on its Facebook page, the group announced that it has finally been approved by the ministry and that it would soon be holding a meeting to elect its president.
The new group was initiated by more than two dozen activists, including former Judicial Reform Foundation chief executive director Lin Feng-cheng (林峰正), Taiwan Rural Front president Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮), Taiwan Rural Front secretary-general Frida Tsai (蔡培慧), writer Michael Lin (林世煜) and Academia Sinica associate researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
“[Former Democratic Progressive Party chairman] Lin I-hsiung [林義雄] was behind the founding of the group, but he will not be involved in the operations of the group,” co-founder Lin Feng-cheng said. “The group’s objectives are to create a better and fairer society through political participation and reform.”
As a social organization, it will not be able to nominate candidates in elections, but can recommend candidates to run as independents.
Previously, the group accused the ministry of trying to block the group’s founding by turning down their applications, saying that the words “Republic of China (ROC)” or “Taiwan” should be included in the group’s full name.
The ministry denied that accusation yesterday.
“We didn’t turn down the applications, we merely wanted to make the recommendation that the group include ‘ROC’ or ‘Taiwan’ in its full name, since that’s what most other groups do,” Department of Cooperative and Civil Associations Director Weng Wen-te (翁文德) said.
“It’s only a recommendation, there’s no law saying they must do so, it’s a fundamental right for people to decide the name of their organization,” Weng said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods