President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said yesterday that the government must strike a balance between preserving a park commemorating victims of military repression during the Martial Law Era and installing cultural items.
Ma made the remarks after inspecting the Taiwan Human Rights Memorial in Sindian City (新店市), Taipei County.
Inspecting the compound, Ma said the management of the park should pay attention to the feelings of the victims and their families and showcase the administration’s resolve to protect human rights.
“When we face history, we must take matters on their merits. That is what I call honesty,” the president said. “When we face the victims and their families, we must judge their feelings by our own feelings. That is what I call compassion, but to fell compassion for someone is not to take pity on them.”
Ma said he hoped to see a park where the public could come and relax, learn about human rights, and where artists could exhibit their works.
The park has caused controversy because of a change of its name and designation. The Council for Cultural Affairs decided to change its name to Jingmei Cultural Park without consulting former political prisoners who were once jailed there. The council also said it would allow artistic groups to use rooms — and alter the interior if necessary — in buildings on the grounds.
The decision drew strong opposition from human rights activists and was criticized by many former political prisoners as a way for the ruling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) to gloss over parts of its sordid past.
The memorial was created in 2007 on the site of the former Jingmei military detention center, where thousands of political dissidents were tried and jailed during the White Terror period.
Seeking to allay the public outcry, the Executive Yuan recently agreed to change the name to Jingmei Human Rights and Cultural Park.
Ma said, after carefully looking into the matter, that he and the Council of Cultural Affairs had been criticized unfairly as they had not intended any cover-up nor had the council changed the name of the park.
“The Green Island Cultural Park [in Taitung County] was not called a human rights park either when the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was in power,” Ma said.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS