The battle to rename the square in front of Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall heated up yesterday when the Taipei City Government passed legislation that would require the central government to seek approval from the city government if any changes were to be made to the hall.
The Ministry of Education, meanwhile, said it would proceed with plans to change the inscription once it obtained clearance from the Council of Cultural Affairs.
Following an administrative meeting yesterday morning, Lee Yung-ping (李永萍), director of the city government's Department of Cultural Affairs, told a press conference the department had amended and elevated the legal status of the "Principal Points of Designation and Abolishment of Taipei City Municipal Historical Heritage (台北市市定古蹟指定及廢止作業
PHOTO: CNA
The amendment stipulates that the designation or abolition of heritage sites by the city could not be influenced by the central government's designating or revoking a historical site's status.
"According to the amendment, the central government needs to obtain the city government's approval before it can manage, maintain and renew a municipal historical monument," Lee said.
The legislation came into force yesterday.
The Taipei High Administrative Court on Friday rejected a Taipei City Government injunction request to bar the ministry from changing the inscription alluding to dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) at the gateway of the memorial hall and replace it with "Liberty Square" (自由廣場).
But the court ruled that the city government had jurisdiction over its protection and "did not need to request an injunction and could arrest anyone caught destroying the relic."
"Should the ministry send a document seeking to revoke our jurisdiction over CKS Memorial Hall, we would immediately seek a constitutional interpretation as per the Local Government Act (
Lee said that anyone removing the inscription at the gateway would be arrested and charged with violation of the Cultural Heritage Preservation Law (文化資產保存法).
Yeh Chin-yuan (葉慶元), the city's Law and Regulation Committee commissioner, said that while the hall is a symbol of authoritarianism, "making changes to the hall just because the president said so was not something a democracy would do."
The ministry yesterday was given the green light by the Executive Yuan to dismantle the inscription dazhong zhizheng (
The permission came after Premier Chang Chun-hsiung (
The ministry has complete authority over the hall and the Taipei City Government should stop protesting the government's decision to change the inscription, ministry Secretary-General Chuang Guo-rong (
The original four-character inscription, which reads "Great Neutrality and Perfect Uprightness," will be taken down as early as midnight tomorrow and replaced by another four-character inscription that says "Liberty Square," he said.
The council's judiciary committee yesterday passed an amendment to the regulations on designating and abolishing historical sites. The amendment, effective immediately, stipulates that a municipality will immediately lose jurisdiction over a municipal historical site after the central government has designated it as a national historical site.
As the council has already made the hall a national historical site, the Taipei City Government would have no say over the matter.
"We call on the Taipei City Government to follow the example of post-war Germany by removing all remnants of a past dictator. The city government must not prevent Taiwan from becoming a full democracy," Chuang said.
Officially opened in 1980, the hall was built in honor of dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), who ruled Taiwan for 30 years until his death in 1975.
In May, as part of the Democratic Progressive Party government's effort to cleanse the nation of remnants of the authoritarian regime, President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) proposed deleting Chiang's name and renaming the hall National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.
The announcement drew fire from the Taipei City Government, which argued that the hall fell under its jurisdiction and that the central government was prohibited from altering any parts of the hall, including its name.
"We call on the city government to behave rationally and refrain from inciting violence over the matter," Chuang said.
Last night, a bus load of police officers was deployed to the hall to prevent possible altercations.
The Third Society Party staged a protest at the hall yesterday, urging the government to suspend its decision to take down the plague of the hall and demanding that Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (
Lin Chih-jen (林致真), a legislator-at-large candidate who led about 10 supporters to stage the protest, asked the DPP and KMT to tackle the issue in a peaceful manner and postpone the move until after the presidential election so politics would not get in the way.
"We are worried that the two parties will use the matter to stir up passions and incite hatred. If that is the case, it will only do more harm than good to the country," he said.
Lin said they would stay at the hall until their demands were met, adding that they would adopt a peaceful and rational approach to stop the removal of the plaque.
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan and Ko Shu-ling
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