The father and sister of deceased Vietnamese migrant worker Nguyen Quoc Phi yesterday rallied in front of the Presidential Office in Taipei, seeking justice for the worker who was shot and killed by police last month.
The latest rally, organized by the Migrant Empowerment Network in Taiwan (MENT) and other rights groups, follows the release of ambulance surveillance footage showing that police and paramedics delayed treating Nguyen after he was shot nine times.
“Whether my brother was at fault or not, police should not have shot him nine times,” said Nguyen’s 26-year-old sister, Nguyen Thi Thao, who held a photograph of her brother.
Photo: CNA
Nguyen broke down in tears and trembled as she spoke, asking why the first ambulance to arrive at the scene did not help her brother.
She also demanded an apology from the officer who killed him.
“Police fired nine shots at my son and killed him. I am heartbroken,” said Nguyen Quoc Dong, Nguyen Quoc Phi’s father. “I hope President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other officials punish the killer and give my family and son justice.”
Nguyen Thi Thao asked the public to help her family obtain a recording of her brother’s last words in the ambulance.
Hsinchu County police officer Chen Chung-wen (陳崇文) shot and killed Nguyen Quoc Phi on Aug. 31.
Police said Nguyen attacked the officer and a community watch officer when they tried to stop him from vandalizing and stealing a car.
Surveillance footage from the first ambulance on the scene shows that Nguyen Quoc Phi was still alive when it arrived.
The footage shows police and paramedics watching as the migrant worker died, without offering medical assistance.
The first ambulance left the scene with the injured community watch officer.
A second ambulance arrived later and the paramedics assisted Nguyen Quoc Phi.
He was pronounced dead at a hospital.
Taiwan International Workers’ Association researcher Chen Hsiu-lien (陳秀蓮) questioned why police did not subdue or cuff Nguyen Quoc Phi after the first ambulance arrived if he still posed a threat.
Nguyen’s father and sister, along with lawyers and labor rights activists submitted their petition to Presidential Office officials.
Presidential Office spokesman Sidney Lin (林鶴明) said that the government pays attention to and protects the rights of migrant workers, adding that the case is being investigated and that his office would respect the results of that investigation.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
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,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift