The father of a woman who was killed in June at the Huashan Grassland (華山大草原) yesterday filed lawsuits against Taipei City Government officials alleging malfeasance.
The 30-year-old woman, surnamed Kao (高), was allegedly murdered and dismembered by her archery instructor, surnamed Chen (陳), who taught classes at his studio at the Huashan Grassland, which was leased by the Taipei Urban Regeneration Office to an art group called Unregulated Masses (野青眾) from November last year to June 30.
The group used the land to create an artists’ village, which included Chen’s archery studio.
The art installations and tents were removed after the incident and the land returned to the Judicial Yuan in late June.
Kao’s father, who only gave his last name, yesterday rang the bell outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to file lawsuits alleging “misuse of public power for private profit” by Taipei Urban Regeneration Office Director Fang Ting-an (方定安) and Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
He accused the pair of poor management of public space, allowing the group to set up illegal structures and offer classes.
“There is no other place in the nation so disordered as the former condition of the Huashan Grassland, which is a result of long-term malfeasance by the Taipei City Government,” he said.
A neighboring borough warden had reported the illegal structures and loud noises coming from the artists’ village at night, but the city government merely sent notices eight times and did not take action, he said
He said he was also suing Ko for defaming his daughter.
Ko used the phrase “scary lover” (恐怖情人) when he spoke about Chen and his daughter, the father said.
Ko yesterday said it is people’s right to sue, but added that there might have been some misunderstandings.
“Filing a lawsuit is the people’s right, but he [Kao’s father] misunderstood the ‘scary lover’ remark,” Ko said. “I was replying to a reporter’s question about how to prevent ‘scary lovers.’”
“Statistics show that the violent crime rate in Taipei has declined, while other types of crimes have increased slightly,” he said.
“However, in individual cases, statistics do not mean anything for the families of those killed,” he said.
Ko said he could understand the family’s feelings and that the city government would act responsibly, but he could not do anything about misunderstandings.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Chiang Chih-ming (江志銘) asked Ko at a city council meeting to apologize to the family.
Ko said that as the head of the governing authority, he would like to apologize to the family, adding that city authorities would review the case and work on improving management of public spaces.
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:
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