The Social Democratic Party (SDP) — a center-left political party set to be launched on Sunday — yesterday announced its plans to field two prominent social activists for next year’s legislative elections: gay rights advocate Jennifer Lu (呂欣潔) and anti-death-penalty activist Miao Po-ya (苗博雅).
The two candidates — both openly lesbian — are to face off against incumbent male contenders from the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), prompting the SDP to brand their campaign as “a showdown between girls and uncles.”
Lu plans to enter the race for Taipei’s Xinyi (信義) and Songshan (松山) districts against the KMT’s Alex Fai (費鴻泰), while Miao is to go up against the KMT’s Lai Shyh-bao (賴士葆) in Taipei’s Wenshan (文山) and southern Zhongzheng (中正) districts.
Photo: CNA
The campaign has aroused interest, as both KMT legislators have been accused of courting conservative groups in efforts to block legislation to legalize same-sex marriage — bringing gay rights issues into the national spotlight for next year’s legislative elections.
During a meeting with the Alliance of Religious Groups for the Love of Families Taiwan in September last year, Fai assured the group that he shared their views, saying that legislative motions to legalize same-sex marriage were “premature” and “lacked social consensus.”
Lai came under fire in January last year when he helped another conservative group arrange a meeting with then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺).
SDP Secretary-General Urda Yen (嚴婉玲) said that Lu’s and Miao’s campaign activities would be based only partly on issues related to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities.
She added that the candidates have a proven track record of advocating for human rights and promoting political activism among young people.
Miao, 28, is a human rights activist with a focus on judicial reform.
An outspoken critic of capital punishment, she formerly headed the legal affairs division at the Taiwan Alliance to End the Death Penalty.
Lu, 32, is best known for her work in promoting LGBT rights as a core member of the Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association.
She said that she intends to spearhead reforms to social welfare institutions, saying that the nation’s current long-term care services for disabled citizens and children require a major overhaul.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching