A petition to block Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from registering his political party under the name Taiwan People’s Party (台灣民眾黨) passed its initial legal review, the online public policy platform showed yesterday.
From its launch on Friday last week to press time last night, the petition had gathered 1,115 signatures. It must collect 5,000 signatures by Oct. 5 to require the government to issue an official response, according to join.gov.tw.
The petition’s sponsor, former Tainan deputy mayor Tseng Hsu-cheng (曾旭正), has said that Ko should not be allowed to “muddle history” by reusing the name of the party that Taiwanese democracy pioneer Chiang Wei-shui (蔣渭水) founded in 1927.
Photo: Hung Jui-ching, Taipei Times
Following yesterday’s announcement, Tseng on Facebook called on the public to sign the petition, saying that the news was a “gift” for Ko after his convention to found the party was officially formed earlier yesterday.
“A politician has proposed registering a new political party under the name Taiwan People’s Party, while bearing no resemblance in purpose, spirit or character to the Taiwan People’s Party of the past century or its founder, Chiang,” the petition reads. “It is deeply inappropriate to allow the machinations of politicians to mislead innocent members of the public in their understanding of history.”
The Ministry of Culture should explain the historical relevance of Chiang’s movement, while the Ministry of the Interior should amend the Political Parties Act (政黨法) to close the loophole that would allow Ko to use the name, it says.
The petition would “protect a historical and cultural heritage from pollution” and “ensure that the farcical plagiarism of history by political parties will not repeat itself,” the organizers said.
Under the act, the name or abbreviation of a political party should not be similar or identical to a political party that has already been established, have potential for confusion with a governmental or nonprofit organization, or incite discrimination or hatred.
It also stipulates that the responsible agency should establish a body to arbitrate “doubts or concerns ... regarding a political party’s disciplinary actions, name, abbreviation or emblem, or other related matters.”
The Ministry of the Interior would convene a committee to review Ko’s application if the petition obtains the necessary number of signatures, a source said on condition of anonymity.
Environmental groups yesterday filed an appeal with the Executive Yuan, seeking to revoke the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conditionally approved in February for the Hsieh-ho Power Plant’s planned fourth liquefied natural gas (LNG) receiving station off the coast of Keelung. The appeal was filed jointly by the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group, the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association and the Keelung City Taiwan Head Cultural Association, which together held a news conference outside the Executive Yuan in Taipei. Explaining the reasons for the appeal, Wang Hsing-chih (王醒之) of the Protect Waimushan Seashore Action Group said that the EIA failed to address
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying
RSS