Victims of political persecution yesterday urged the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to expedite passage of a transitional justice bill and give justice to aging survivors of the White Terror era, instead of delaying it in favor of budget bills.
A draft bill on the promotion of transitional justice that was proposed on April 1 last year calls for the establishment of an agency to tackle the issue, declassify political archives, seek to uncover the truth, restore the reputation of political victims, remove authoritarian symbols and settle ill-gotten party asset issues.
However, the draft bill was shelved after being approved by a legislative committee, as the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) proposed extending the bill’s application beyond the Martial Law era to the Japanese colonial period, while Aboriginal lawmakers called for the inclusion of Aboriginal transitional justice in the bill.
Photo: Chu Pei -hsiung, Taipei Times
The Taiwan Association for the Care of the Victims of Political Persecution and other human rights groups held a news conference in front of the DPP’s headquarters in Taipei to call for swift passage of the bill.
“Since the DPP administration took office last year, more than 30 victims of political persecution have passed away and more than 16,000 victims are still waiting for the day when the truth is revealed and injustice redressed,” association secretary-general Shih You-si (施又熙) said.
“The biggest enemy of transitional justice is time,” Shih added.
The DPP administration has passed the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例), but delayed passage of the transitional justice bill, raising questions whether the party’s advocacy of transitional justice is politically motivated, Taiwan Association of University Professors member Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said.
DPP Deputy Secretary-General Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told the petitioners that the party supports the passage of the bill, but it has been hampered by a lack of consensus among political parties, despite three rounds of cross-caucus negotiations.
The association said that Hsu later met with the petitioners at the DPP’s headquarters and told them that while the party is prepared to put the bill to a vote despite the disagreement with the KMT, the priorities of this legislative session are the budget bills.
Review of the transitional justice bill would have to be delayed until the next session, Hsu said.
Taiwan Association for the Care of the Victims of Political Persecution honorary director Tsai Kuan-yu (蔡寬裕) was dissatisfied with the DPP’s response, saying the group would continue to campaign for its cause despite the setbacks.
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
‘IMMORAL, INSINCERE’: Huang Kun-huei said that Ma was ‘distorting history’ in claiming that Lee Teng-hui laid the foundation for the so-called ‘1992 consensus’ Former Presidential Office secretary-general Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) on Saturday rejected former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) claim that former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) had been a proponent of Beijing’s “one China” principle. Lee, who served as president from 1988 to 2000, died in Taipei on Thursday last week. After visiting the Taipei Guest House on Saturday to pay his respects to Lee, Ma posted on Facebook that “28 years ago on this day” Lee hosted a session of the now-defunct National Unification Council, during which he passed a resolution on the “one China” principle. That resolution became the basis of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s
NEW ERA: Taiwan, which has controlled its virus outbreak, now faces the challenge of safely resuming economic exchanges with other nations, Chang Shan-chwen said People should not focus entirely on having zero new confirmed COVID-19 cases in Taiwan, but neglect overall control over the disease situation, Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) specialist advisory panel convener Chang Shan-chwen (張上淳) said yesterday. Chang made the remark at a forum in Taipei discussing the steps Taiwan should take in the post-pandemic era, organized by the Chinese-language magazine Global Views Monthly. Chang, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), and Stanford University’s Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention director C. Jason Wang (王智弘) each made a presentation, followed by a panel discussion with Chang, Wang and Buddhist Tzu
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
RSS