Taiwan’s participation in International Holocaust Remembrance Day would offer the nation more opportunities to be included in the UN framework, National Taiwan University (NTU) history professor Hua Yih-fen (花亦芬) said yesterday.
The day of remembrance, observed internationally on Jan. 27, commemorates the millions of people who were killed by the Nazi regime during World War II.
Speaking at a forum in Taipei about the 228 Massacre and transitional justice, Hua said that the remembrance day is advocated by UNESCO, so its ability to advance Taiwan’s participation in UN-organized events should not be underestimated.
Taiwan, with the assistance of the German Institute Taipei and the Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, held its first International Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony in 2016, which then-president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) attended, she said.
The following day, the German Institute Taipei uploaded a list on Facebook of the nations that have held commemorative events, on which Taiwan was included and Ma was addressed as “president,” she said.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) attended last year’s commemorative event, she added.
Holding commemorative events on the remembrance day would help boost the nation’s international profile and help it forge a closer bond with the international community, Hua said.
She emphasized the important role education plays in the pursuit of transitional justice, citing a 2014 UN report that included Taiwan on a list of countries and regions that do not educate their young students about the Holocaust in a way that would provide them with a thorough understanding of it.
This has resulted in some Taiwanese students dressing up as Nazis for fun, which has embarrassed Taiwan, she said.
Similarly, Taiwan’s senior-high schools must be required to allocate sufficient class hours to educate students about the 228 Incident and the ensuing White Terror era, instead of just focusing on the “elite” who were murdered, like history textbooks often do, she said.
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