Former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) is to carefully consider whether to attend the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) national congress tomorrow, his son said yesterday.
Chen Chih-chung (陳致中) issued the statement in response to a proposal that his father, who is on medical parole, attend the meeting to show his appreciation of those who are promoting a motion for his pardon.
Chen Shui-bian is required to obtain Taichung Prison’s approval in advance if he wants to take part in any public activities, Taichung Prison Deputy Warden Lin Shun-pin (林順斌) said, adding that the prison has not yet received any such request.
Chen Shui-bian was convicted of corruption and sentenced to 20 years in prison shortly after the second term of his presidency ended in 2008.
He was serving his sentence at Taichung Prison, but was released in January 2015 on medical parole due to various ailments.
He has since been living in Kaohsiung.
An alliance of DPP politicians is planning to raise a motion at the upcoming national congress, calling for President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to grant a special pardon to the former president.
DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Hsiao Yung-ta (蕭永達), who is a leading member of the alliance, yesterday said that the motion has been endorsed by 511 of the party’s 591 representatives, showing that it is the “mainstream opinion” within the party.
The alliance urges Chen Shui-bian to seriously consider the possibility of attending the congress to show his appreciation for the party representatives pushing for his pardon, Hsiao said.
Separately yesterday, DPP legislative caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (柯建銘) said he believes that Tsai will use her wisdom to deal with the issue of Chen Shui-bian’s pardon and that the party will respect her handling of the matter.
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
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
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