The Housing Act (住宅法) should be amended to clarify the meaning of residency rights, establish an appeals system for their violation and ban discrimination, human rights advocates said yesterday, as the Ministry of the Interior presses for revisions to facilitate construction of public housing.
Executive agencies and courts have rarely invoked the residency rights guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, since the two covenants were ratified by the Legislative Yuan in 2009, Taiwan Alliance Against Forced Evictions executive council member Huang Hui-yu (黃慧瑜) said.
“Even though the twin covenants have held the force of domestic law for years, all sorts of land development cases have faced controversy over forced relocations, a situation which has not changed since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office,” she said.
“It is important that the twin covenant guarantees be inserted into the Housing Act to clearly define residency rights as being different from property rights,” said Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Frida Tsai (蔡培慧), one of the amendments’ sponsors along with DPP legislators Yu Mei-nu (尤美女) and Kolas Yotaka.
Lin Yen-tung (林彥彤), a housing specialist for the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, said that while the act already contains a provision guaranteeing residency rights, implementation has been hampered by the lack of a clear definition.
“Right now the government only talks about resettlement, but not about how existing residency rights should be protected and whether there is a just reason behind demands that people leave,” he said, calling for the act’s residency rights to be defined as corresponding to the definition in the twin covenants and related documents.
“There are all sorts of development plans which can result in forced relocations, but the process of assessment does not include residency rights, such as whether there are historical reasons behind a settlement,” he said.
Anti-discrimination provisions are necessary to guarantee poorer citizens access to private rental housing, Homeless of Taiwan executive council member Lee Wan-chen (李宛真) said.
“For poor people close to the bottom of society, finding rental housing is a series of hurdles — even if you already have money to pay rent or the government will pay for you, you still run into multiple levels of discrimination,” she said.
She added that in the experience of her group — which helps homeless people reintegrate into society — many landlords refuse to consider older renters and often arbitrarily increase rents to drive away poorer applicants.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
RSS