The Civil Human Rights Association yesterday said that it would launch a petition for a referendum to deny parole to those who are serving a life sentence for abusing infants or children to death.
Association founder Ken Chang (張凱鈞) told a public hearing at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei that there is a lack of administrative and legislative action to counter the increasing number of child abuse cases, adding that known cases of might only be the tip of the iceberg.
The association proposed offering subsidies to whistle-blowers and increasing the number of volunteer workers.
Photo: Chen Yun, Taipei Times
Abusing children to death is considered manslaughter, Taiwan Children’s Rights director-general Wang Wei-chun (王薇君) said.
Accusing the administrative and legislative branches of passivity, Wang called on the candidates for next year’s presidential election to pledge actionable policies regarding the issue instead of empty slogans.
It does not matter whether capital punishment could serve as a deterrent, as it is the last form of justice for abused children, Wang said.
The government should abolish capital punishment if it would not use it, Wang added.
In related news, Anti-Drunk Driving Alliance founder Lee Tai-chung (李戴忠) said that preparations for next year’s elections have skewed the legislature’s focus, adding that if the proposed amendments to the Road Traffic Management and Penalty Act (道路交通管理處罰條例) are not passed before the legislature goes into recess at the end of this month, then all efforts would have been in vain.
The proposals, which passed their third reading on March 26, include measures such as increasing traffic fines, installing ignition interlock devices on the vehicles of repeat drunk drivers, shared legal responsibility for passengers and impounding offenders’ vehicles.
However, they require the establishment of ancillary laws, which the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said it would endeavor to complete within six months.
Lee urged the ministry to consider the deaths caused by drunk drivers as manslaughter, to detain drunk drivers and impound their vehicles for three days, implement an alcohol tax on retailers for “social responsibility,” implement subrogation rights for the government to act on behalf of victims, implement automatic sequestration of property to prevent the liquidation of assets by perpetrators, and establish a driving-under-the-influence hotline.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
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