Trees Party Secretary-General Lee Chien-ming (李建明) yesterday said that Chan Ho-yeung (陳皓揚) — who has admitted to killing stray cats — was “unrepentant” and “conceited” after a court appearance on Tuesday.
There were disturbances outside the court again after Chan’s first court appearance on Aug. 16, after which animal rights activists and members of the public broke a police cordon to allegedly punch the suspect, a student from Macau who was completing his graduate degree at the National Taiwan University when he allegedly beat two cats to death.
“Yes, Chan has the right to press charges [for assault], but he has shown himself to be a repeat offender, torturing and killing cats,” Lee said. “The law must come down on him and he must bear the legal responsibility.”
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Chan admitted to the cat incidents and did not object to an indictment over breaches of the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) and also told the court that he was injured in the Aug. 16 incident.
He said he had gone to hospital and obtained an injury report.
Chan asked if he could sue the alleged assailants, to which judges said: “You can file a complaint with the police and press charges at the prosecutors’ office.”
When asked to clarify his intentions, Chan said: “I do not plan to press charges, but that I was beaten up by some people and so I have learned my lesson. I am regretful for my actions, so I hope the judges can have leniency and give me a light sentence.”
Animal rights activists and netizens expressed anger at Chan’s words, labeling him a “serial cat killer” with a serious mental problem.
They called him a “murderer” who should be jailed for “barbaric killings of animals,” adding that they could not believe he had the gall to ask for leniency.
“He does not deserve a lenient sentence just because he was beaten up by some people at a court appearance,” Lee said.
Chan was accompanied to court on Tuesday by his family and friends, along with a private security guard, where a group of people called Chan “human trash,” while others yelled: “Is it right to kill cats for fun?”
During one confrontation, the security guard appeared to be punched in the face by a TV cameraman.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater