The legislature’s Internal Administration Committee completed a preliminary review yesterday of the Executive Yuan’s draft “Hakka basic act,” which would require the government to designate a national holiday to honor the ethnic group and highlight the community’s contribution to Taiwan’s diversity.
The draft authorizes the Executive Yuan to hold inter-agency meetings to coordinate Hakka affairs and urges the government to hold national Hakka meetings at regular intervals.
The bill would also require the government to designate areas where the number of Hakka accounts for one-third of the area’s population as important regions for the development of Hakka culture.
The government should promote the Hakka language as an official language within these regions, the bill says.
Legislators agreed with Minister for Hakka Affairs Huang Yu-chen (黃玉振) on most articles in the draft, but they challenged the council’s definition of the “Hakka community.”
The proposal defined the community as “descendants of Hakka,” “someone with Hakka relatives,” “someone fluent in Hakka language or culture” or “someone who identifies themselves as a member of the ethnic group.”
A number of legislators said the definition was too general, but Huang said a broad definition was necessary because intermarriage between the Hakka community and other ethnic groups were common.
Lawmakers later agreed that only descendants of Hakka or those who are related to the ethnic group and consider themselves part of the community could be considered members of the Hakka community.
“The draft Hakka basic act is a piece of legislation seeking to protect the rights of the Hakka people as a group,” Huang said, adding that he hoped the bill would soon clear the legislative floor.
Meanwhile, the Economics Committee passed a preliminary review of a proposed amendment to the Animal Protection Act (動物保護法) that would subject individuals who post or distribute images or footage of animal abuse to a maximum sentence of one year in prison.
However, people who post such images for academic purposes or social welfare reasons would be exempt.
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
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