The Muslim prayer room opened in January by the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) at the Taipei Main Station is inadequate, several Muslims said.
The prayer room was seen as a conciliatory gesture after the agency’s controversial handling of Muslims who gathered at the Taipei Main Station to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting, in 2012, when station staff blocked off most of the lobby on days migrants were expected to gather at the station.
The room, which had previously been a military police office, is not suitable for religious purposes, Muslim migrant workers said.
Yuni, an Indonesian who works as a caregiver, said the main problem was the prayer room’s distance from washing facilities.
Before prayers, Muslims must perform the lesser ablution — the washing of face, hands and feet — at the very least, Yuni said.
However, the nearest restroom equipped with water-spray toilets — necessary for Muslims who use the toilet before prayers — is 80m from the prayer room, which makes it impossible to perform the basic hygiene requirements before prayer, she said.
Because walking that distance makes one’s feet ritually unclean, “it becomes pointless to wash your feet” in the facility, Yunis said.
Iss, Yunis’ sister, who works at a nursing home complex, said that the 2 ping (6.6m2) prayer room is too small and lacks customary gender segregation.
As a result, they were forced to pray in the lobby, perform ablutions with bottled water and use newspapers for prayer mats, the sisters said, adding that they had to pray one at a time, because one of them had to be on the lookout for onlookers and male police officers.
They said that bystanders were not always polite and that the TRA’s solution was the result of a “better than nothing is good enough for Muslims” mindset.
The Chinese Muslim Association of Taiwan said it had notified the TRA that the station’s prayer room needs to be gender segregated and that the station should provide washing facilities for lesser ablution.
The TRA was cited by the association as saying that there was no room for expansion and that the station’s wiring and plumbing layouts did not permit the construction of new washing facilities.
The association said it appreciated that the TRA was taking a step in the right direction, adding that it hopes improvements would be made.
Meanwhile, Taipei Main Station Master Huang Jung-hua (黃榮華) said that the utilization rate of the prayer room is low, about 50 to 100 people per day during holidays, adding that the TRA has “done its best to accommodate the needs of Muslims.”
Huang said he will work to improve the room.
According to Muslim migrant workers, Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s and the Taiwan High Speed Rail (THSR) Taichung Station’s prayer rooms are better than the one at the Taipei Main Station, with the THSR Taichung Station’s prayer room providing folding chairs and facilities for washing and drying feet.
The Tourism Bureau said it has constructed facilities for Muslims to perform lesser ablution before prayers at 13 national scenic areas.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by