The Local Council Alliance for A-bian’s Amnesty yesterday said that 85 percent of its members have signed a petition in favor of former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) pardon.
“A-bian” is Chen’s nickname.
There are 505 valid signatures, meaning that 85 percent of the 591 active Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) representatives have signed, said Kaohsiung City Councilor Hsiao Jung-ta (蕭永達), who also signed the petition.
Photo: CNA
Hsiao said he is confident Chen will be pardoned, since the DPP is the governing party and it is clear from the number of signatures that the party supports it.
Chen’s contributions far outshadow his crimes and the resources he left behind for the DPP outweigh the debt, he added.
Another supporter, Taipei City Councilor Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘), called Chen’s case a political one disguised as a legal case and urged President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to pardon the former president.
The Presidential Office said that the decision is the right and duty of the president, not of any political party or civil organization.
The administration will not make a decision based on the opinions of party members, Presidential Office spokesman Alex Huang (黃重諺) said.
Tsai, who also serves as DPP chairperson, will make her decision based on proper legal proceedings rather than on the opinions of the party, even though it is the governing party, Huang said.
The administration understands the signatories’ opinions, but believes that everyone will respect the president’s right to make the decision based on the Constitution, he added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods