Among the numerous trees in Tainan felled by Typhoon Soudelor, a historic one linked to the White Terror era on the campus of National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School was also knocked over, prompting a call from the school for experts to help restore the tree.
School officials said the uprooted madras tree was dubbed the “Human Rights Tree” or “Yao-tiao tree,” because a locket of hair from Ting Yao-tiao (丁窈窕), who was killed during the White Terror era, was buried beneath it.
The White Terror refers to the period of political persecution that began when dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) declared martial law in 1949.
Photo: Huang Wen-huang, Taipei Times
Convinced that she would be killed, Ting surreptitiously left a farewell letter with a locket of her hair in a cigarette box under a tree near the detention facility (where she was held at the time) for her friend and fellow inmate, Kuo Chen-chun (郭振純), the school said.
Ting was tried by a military tribunal and executed for conspiracy to subvert the government. She was 29 years old at the time of her death.
National archive research into her case maintains that the charges against her were fabricated.
Kuo was subjected to severe torture, but refused to confess. Sentenced to life imprisonment, Kuo was pardoned in 1975 after Chiang Kai-shek had died.
Kuo later buried the locket of Ting’s hair beneath the tree on the campus of National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School.
School officials said they have asked Chao Jui-Kuang (晁瑞光), an environmental studies lecturer at Tainan Community University, to see if the tree can be saved.
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