The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday protested a recent court ruling that found former Ting Hsin International Group (頂新集團) employees not guilty in an adulterated cooking oil case and filed a petition with the Judicial Yuan calling for the establishment of a jury-based system before the case enters its second trial.
Several foundation representatives demonstrated outside the Judicial Yuan in Taipei, calling for the use of a jury to promote justice in the case and holding signs that read: “bias discretion,” “civilian jury” and “save our own health by ourselves.”
Former Ting Hsin Oil and Fat Industrial Co (頂新製油實業) chairman Wei Ying-chun (魏應充) was last year charged by the Changhua County Prosecutors’ Office with violating the Act Governing Food Safety and Sanitation (食品安全衛生管理法) over the use of animal feed-grade material imported from a Vietnam-based oil manufacturer to produce cooking oil and other food products.
The foundation said the verdicts were a significant setback to the nation’s food safety, because despite it being established during the trial that Ting Hsin “imported low-quality oil that was nearly industrial-use grade and refined it into oil for human consumption,” the company’s former employees were still all ruled not guilty.
Foundation chairman Alan Lu (陸雲) said that even though the court determined the refined oil products were able to meet regulatory standards, the foundation found the “specious assertion” unacceptable, because if the amount of acids in an ingredient is too high, then there must be something wrong with it.
Foundation chief inspector and National Tsing Hua University chemistry professor Ling Young-chien (凌永健) said that while the amount of acids can be reduced to meet legal standards, the Ministry of Health and Welfare and prosecutors should further examine and clarify which types of acids were used and whether consumption poses a health risk to humans.
The group called for a new examination standard to be established to prevent more tainted food scandals and filed a petition with the Judicial Yuan urging it to introduce a jury system to ensure impartial rulings.
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:
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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