Minister without portfolio-designate Chang Ching-sen (張景森), who was president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) policy office executive director, stirred up controversy with comments on Facebook calling activists “pathetic” for having sided with a family who resisted an urban renewal project that demolished their residence, but are now reportedly receiving five apartments in the completed apartment complex.
The post, criticized by activists and politicians alike and deleted soon after it was posted, also prompted a response from premier-designate Lin Chuan (林全) yesterday.
Lin said he wished to remind Cabinet members that “with the change of our positions, every slip of the tongue can cause social distress and lead all our efforts in preparation for future reforms to go up in smoke.”
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“Urban renewal has to be done, but it should not be the means for corporations to speculate and rake in profits. The Wenlin Yuan case was so controversial because then-Taipei City Government had become the demolition team of the construction company, which had advertised the project before the dispute was resolved,” Lin told a news conference yesterday. “The procedure was indeed flawed.”
He said that Chang’s remarks “blurred why the project was contentious” since “people’s rights, their emotional attachment to their home, democratic procedure and public interest” are things that cannot be measured in terms of money, “and this is what we should always remember.”
The controversy stemmed from a Facebook post by Chang on Monday about an ad advertising the Wenlin Yuan (文林苑) urban renewal project in Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) that in 2012 met resistance from the Wang (王) family who had refused to be relocated for the renewal and sparked a protest that was joined by scores of activists and students.
“[It was] the most kuso [a term in Taiwanese subculture meaning memed or parodied, but has evolved to indicate something nonsensically funny] activism in history. The Wang family that seemed to have been persecuted by the construction company and the government had a house that was 56.06 ping [185.2m2], but now has been distributed five apartments that total 175.02 ping with a value of more than NT$100 million [US$3.1 million],” Chang wrote.
“Fuck! How pathetic,” he wrote. “I meant those highbrow young people who howled for justice and staged candlelight vigils for the family.”
Chang soon deleted the Facebook post after it attracted a barrage of criticism.
However, Chang wrote another post saying he had no intention of making fun of the Wang family and the activists,” and added: “If the Wang family is still not satisfied with the five apartments they got, I can only say that they are unhappy billionaires. The [2012] protest, in my opinion, has stigmatized urban renewal and halted the city’s renewal projects.”
The second post was also later deleted.
Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) on Monday night posted on Facebook: “Do Chang’s comments … reflect the new government’s stance on housing justice? In other words, [is the government saying] we can tear your house down whether you like it or not, and when we give you some money and housing units in exchange, you must make your kowtows and say: ‘Thank you your highness’?”
He called on the Democratic Progessive Party to remove Chang from the future Cabinet, adding: “My second request is to [former Taipei mayor] Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and other Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) politicians: Shut up. You were the ones who tore down their house.”
The Social Democracy Party (SDP) also issued a statement, saying the Wenlin Yuan project was a controversial case that highlighted the unconstitutionality of Article 36 of the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例) that grants the government the power to remove designated buildings on behalf of the implementers of the renewal.
“Is mocking those young activists who have always been walking ahead of the DPP the only thing Chang, a DPP-nominated minister without portfolio, can do? Is this what the DPP mean by residential justice?” the SDP statement said.
Cabinet spokesperson-to-be Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) later on Monday said that Chang’s personal remarks do not represent the future DPP administration.
Additional reporting by Su Fang-ho
COSTLY TECH FAILURE: More than 25,000 files for nearly 8,000 students from 81 schools were lost when system administrators updated a server, the Ministry of Education said The academic records of 7,854 high-school students have been lost due to a hard-drive failure, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The records were being stored at National Chi Nan University, which was commissioned by the ministry’s K-12 Education Administration to host a computer server of student portfolios that universities could access to evaluate their applications. Under a program introduced in 2019 for high-school students starting that year, students are to create portfolios to be used for university applications, which include their grades, extracurricular activities and other information related to their character and achievements. System administrators discovered that files were missing when rebooting
CONFUSING RESULTS: A New Taipei City worker tested positive for COVID-19 in a rapid test and a PCR test, but negative in a traditional nucleic acid test, the CECC said Travelers from Bangladesh, Brazil and Peru are no longer required to quarantine at a government center, and from Saturday can choose to quarantine at hotels, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The three nations are no longer considered “key high-risk countries,” as their COVID-19 case numbers have continued to fall, the CECC said, adding that no travelers from these countries have been confirmed to be infected with COVID-19 in the past two months. The revised classification would allow travelers from the three countries to choose where they stay during their mandatory 14-day quarantine, although they would be required to pay
Paraguay, Belize, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, three of the 15 UN members that have official diplomatic ties with Taiwan, voiced support at the UN General Assembly on Friday for Taiwan’s inclusion in the UN. In a video played at the 76th session of the General Assembly in New York, Paraguayan President Mario Abdo Benitez said that universality is a basic principle of the UN, and based on that principle, “we support the inclusion of Taiwan within the United Nations system.” Taiwan lost its UN seat in 1971, when most countries shifted recognition to Beijing. Belizian Prime Minister John Briceno on Friday attended
ONE NEW DOMESTIC CASE: The CECC confirmed the COVID-19 case based on an antibody test, despite other tests indicating that the woman was likely not infectious The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) would ease COVID-19 restrictions depending on the vaccination rate and other factors, but lowering the level 2 COVID-19 alert would require more careful consideration, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the center, said yesterday. In its decision of when to lower the alert, the center would take into account Taiwan’s first-dose COVID-19 vaccination rate, with the aim to reach 60 percent, people’s compliance with disease prevention measures and the general COVID-19 situation in the nation, Chen told the CECC’s daily news conference. The center would take “a more rigorous approach” when making
RSS