The Transitional Justice Commission has proven itself to be a mere tool of political struggle after commission deputy chairman Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) resigned over his controversial remarks targeting Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral candidate Hou You-yi (侯友宜), Hou’s campaign office said yesterday.
“The commission has degraded itself and become a certain political party’s thug, and is apparently confused about whether it represents the government or the party,” it said.
The commission’s behavior ran counter to its stated aim of reinforcing the constitutional structure of free democracy and has seriously undermined Taiwan’s democratic values, it said.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
Chang resigned yesterday morning after the Chinese-language Mirror Media magazine published a partial transcript of a recording of an informal commission meeting held by Chang on Aug. 24, which was also attended by commission Secretary-General Hsu Chun-ju (許君如), two researchers and two associate researchers.
According to the transcript, Chang said it would be a pity not to manipulate public opinion against Hou, whom Chang called the “most despicable case in transitional justice.”
Hsu was also heard telling Chang at the meeting that they needed to seek support from Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session to prevent the commission’s budget from being cut.
Hou headed the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division in its 1989 failed attempt to arrest democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) at his Freedom Era Weekly magazine office at the behest of the KMT regime.
Deng locked himself in his office and set himself alight, refusing to be taken alive.
Hou’s campaign office questioned whether Hsu’s comments suggested that DPP lawmakers are planning to launch an attack on Hou under the pretext of transitional justice and whether President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who doubles as DPP chairperson, is aware of such a plan.
“As Tsai will be the person who has to shoulder the largest responsibility for the DPP’s performance in the upcoming nine-in-one local elections, we wonder whether Tsai is treating the commission as a DPP affiliate and using it as a campaign tool,” the office said.
Hou told reporters that Tsai owed the nation’s democracy pioneers an apology for using the commission as a political and campaign tool, adding that she owed the public an explanation.
“All the things I have done in this life were done for my beloved nation and with a clear conscience,” Hou said.
KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) also defended Hou, saying that it is both unethical and illegal to blame Deng’s self-immolation on Hou.
“It is the decisionmaker at the time that should be held accountable,” Wu said.
Chang’s attempt to interfere with the election under the pretext of transitional justice has made the commission a “disgrace for democracy,” acting KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Tang Te-ming (唐德明) said.
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
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
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