DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) yesterday asked Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) five questions, urging her to state her position on the issue of high-school curriculum guideline adjustments.
“You [Hung] said that the planned adjustments to curriculum guidelines are a constitutional issue, but the process by which the decision to make the changes was made has been declared illegal in court. Do you still think it is a constitutional issue?” Chen asked. “I would say it is more like an issue of legality.”
Hung on Sunday said that the adjustments were made in accordance with the Constitution.
Chen said 60 percent of the sections on Taiwan’s history would be changed, adding: “Is it really so hard to allow students to study Taiwan’s history?”
“Do the so-called ‘values of democracy and progress’ include a refusal to communicate [with students] and lawsuits?” Chen asked, referring to Minister of Education Wu Se-hwa (吳思華), who has filed lawsuits against students who broke into the Ministry of Education compound on Thursday.
Hung, as a lawmaker, proposed eliminating the budgets of the 228 Memorial Foundation and the Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese) proficiency test, Chen said, adding: “I would like to know if you sincerely believe in ‘one China, de-Taiwanization?’”
Regarding the controversial arrests of the student protesters who broke into the ministry offices and the journalists who followed them, Chen asked Hung: “Do you think that, as long as you do not like someone, you can just arrest them?”
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