A concert commemorating the anniversary of the Dapu incident was held in Miaoli County last evening, with the sponsors saying the event was aimed not only at remembering what had been lost and learned during the past year, but at sending a message to the government that the public will never forget the government brutality shown in the incident.
On July 18 last year, four houses in Dapu Borough (大埔) in Miaoli County’s Jhunan Township (竹南) were demolished against the will of their owners to make way for a controversial science park extension project.
The incident eventually led to the death of the owner of the Chang Pharmacy, Chang Sen-wen (張森文). It remains unclear whether Chang committed suicide.
The Dapu incident has become a symbol of how the public are fighting to help themselves, the Protect Miaoli Youth Alliance said yesterday.
Although the alliance had been praised for organizing the commemoration event, it was the four families who held out against government oppression who were the ones who should be honored, the alliance said.
The alliance said it would stand side by side with the four families until their homes have been restored.
While the main focus of the commemorative effort was the concert in Dapu — which was held near the disputed site — other activities included creating a wall painting and a photographic record of all attendees in a show of solidarity against the Dapu incident, the alliance said.
Lawyer Chan Shun-kui (詹順貴) and movie director Ko I-chen (柯一正) were among the speakers at the concert, which also featured a performance by dancer Hsiao Tzu-han (蕭紫菡).
Alliance organizer Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) yesterday wrote on Facebook that “to this day the four victimized families of Dapu have not achieved their demands, and despite the progress and gains over the past year, there are some things that have been be forever lost.”
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS