The legislature’s Internal Administration Committee on Wednesday reviewed the draft legislation for banning “discrimination based on ethnicity,” but as the lawmakers of the two major parties were at loggerheads over fundamental issues, the review has again been adjourned for another meeting.
The committee first reviewed the draft bill in the middle of last month, in response to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) call for a legislation banning discrimination based on ethnic groups, which was made in the wake of an incident early last month involving a woman called Hung Su-chu (洪素珠), a self-proclaimed citizen journalist who verbally attacked a veteran who came to Taiwan with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime in 1949, while he was walking in a park.
During the first review, Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said that the definition of “discrimination” and how to determine discriminatory behaviors needed clarification.
Lawmakers on Wednesday again had conflicting views over the terms, with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) saying that the term “ethnic group” should first be defined.
DPP Legislator Pasuya Yao (姚文智) said that the Constitution, the existing Hakka Basic Act (客家基本法) and the Indigenous Peoples Basic Act (原住民基本法) all have provisions concerning the protection of ethnic equality, adding that if a special act on the equality of different groups is to be established, it would call for a complete overhaul that starts with clear definitions.
KMT Legislator Chen Chao-ming (陳超明) said that the term “ill-gotten” in the bill proposed by the DPP caucus to deal with ill-gotten party assets is likewise poorly defined.
Aboriginal KMT Legislator Yosi Takun (孔文吉) said the bill could be called an “anti-racism” bill since Aborigines are more likely to face discrimination.
During the review, the minister said he knows that the lawmakers’ proposal is well-intentioned, but “if the proposal is a response to the [Hung] incident that happened weeks earlier, what needs special attention is the comprehensiveness of the legislation.”
Yeh suggested re-positioning the bill from targeting discrimination to promoting equality, as the two are separate legislative directions and “discrimination” is in itself difficult to define.
There was little agreement during the exchange and none of the articles cleared the committee review process.
KMT Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順), the presiding convener of Wednesday’s committee meeting, announced that all of the articles would be reserved for another committee review, which is yet to be scheduled.
She asked the Ministry of the Interior and the Council of Indigenous Peoples to propose their suggestions before Thursday next week.
“[The KMT caucus] hopes to have better discussions with the Executive Yuan and the ministry and will not force through the bill,” Huang said.
DPP Legislator Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) said on Facebook after the review that the KMT was staging a “political stunt.”
“The KMT held up the banner of justice in the wake of the Hung incident and gave birth to the bill within two weeks, but [its lawmakers] had no idea how to define ‘discrimination,’ ‘harassment’ or ‘ethnic group’ during the review,” he wrote.
It is “unprecedented” in a democracy to have freedom of speech restricted by “a bill that has such a vague definition of terms and indistinct assignment of regulations,” Lee said.
“The answer is pretty obvious, if you ask me, as to whether they are really anti-discrimination or just pulling a stunt,” he said.
Additional Reporting by CNA and Alison Hsiao
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS