More than 100 people — including farmers from Miaoli County's Jhunan Township (竹南) — yesterday staged demonstrations outside the Presidential Office and the Control Yuan to protest against a county government plan to take over their land to expand a science park.
“I'm not good at talking, I just wanted to say that I've lived there my whole life and I want the county government to leave my home alone, I want them to leave my farmland alone,” 84-year-old Chen Tan Yin-mei (陳譚銀妹) told the crowd in front of the Control Yuan.
Chen-Tan is one of the farmers in the Dapu (大埔) neighborhood in Jhunan Township who have refused to give up their land so the county government can expand Jhunan Science Park.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
The county government's original plan, announced in 2004, was to take over 23 hectares of land in the area; however, it was expanded to nearly 28 hectares in 2008 when Chimei-Innolux Corp petitioned for more land to expand its plant.
Although the Miaoli County Council adopted a resolution last month banning the county government from starting construction before reaching a consensus with local residents, Chen Tan and others who oppose the takeover are worried, after more than 200 police officers surrounded the community a little after 3am on June 9 and brought in more than 20 excavators to destroy rice paddies that were only about a month to harvest.
The scene not only shocked Dapu residents, but also residents in the Erchongpu (二重埔) neighborhood of Jhudong Township (竹東) in Hsinchu County.
The Hsinchu County Government is also planning to take over land in the area to make way for an industrial park.
“I couldn't sleep well since I saw what happened in Dapu on TV,” Peng Song Ching-mei (彭宋清妹), a 73-year-old farmer from Erchongpu, breaking into tears while talking to the media.
“I want to beg President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to help me, I want to stay where I’ve lived my whole life,” she said, kneeling down.
Thomas Chan (詹順貴), a lawyer and member of the Taiwan Rural Front, questioned the legality of the county government’s move despite its insistence it had acted in accordance with the law.
“The Administrative Enforcement Act [行政執行法] says that when the government is to carry out a task, it should be done with the least harm to the people — I don't know why it's such in a hurry it had to destroy crops that were about to be harvested in a month,” Chan said.
“I also wonder why the county government ignored the [Miaoli] county council's resolution,” Chan said.
In a telephone interview, Miaoli County Government secretary-general Yeh Chih-hang (葉志航) defended the county government's move.
“We’re doing what the county council asked us to do,” Yeh said, adding that the government also had “to defend the interests of the majority of the landowners.”
He said as many as 98 percent of Dapu landowners have agreed to the takeover and are awaiting compensation.
“We have to defend the majority’s interests, we can't let just a handful of people block the whole thing and leave the majority waiting for what they are entitled to,” Yeh said.
Travel agencies in Taiwan are working to secure alternative flights for travelers bound for New Zealand for the Lunar New Year holiday, as Air New Zealand workers are set to strike next week. The airline said that it has confirmed that the planned industrial action by its international wide-body cabin crew would go ahead on Thursday and Friday next week. While the Auckland-based carrier pledged to take reasonable measures to mitigate the impact of the workers’ strike, an Air New Zealand flight arriving at Taipei from Auckland on Thursday and another flight departing from Taipei for Auckland on Saturday would have to
The Taipei City Government yesterday confirmed that it has negotiated a royalties of NT$12.2 billion (US$380 million) with artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant Nvidia Corp, with the earliest possible signing date set for Wednesday next week. The city has been preparing for Nvidia to build its Taiwan headquarters in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park since last year, and the project has now entered its final stage before the contract is signed. Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said the city government has completed the royalty price negotiations and would now push through the remaining procedures to sign the contract before
Taipei Zoo welcomes the Lunar New Year this year through its efforts to protect an endangered species of horse native to central Asia that was once fully extinct outside of captivity. The festival ushering in the Year of the Horse would draw attention to the zoo’s four specimens of Przewalski’s horse, named for a Russian geographer who first encountered them in the late 19th century across the steppes of western Mongolia. “Visitors will look at the horses and think that since this is the Year of the Horse: ‘I want to get to know horses,’” said zookeeper Chen Yun-chieh, who has been
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday said the name of the Taiwanese Representative Office in Lithuania was agreed by both sides, after Lithuania’s prime minister described a 2021 decision to let Taiwan set up a de facto embassy in Vilnius as a “mistake.” Lithuanian Prime Minister Inga Ruginiene, who entered office in September last year, told the Baltic News Service on Tuesday that Lithuania had begun taking “small first steps” aimed at restoring ties with Beijing. The ministry in a statement said that Taiwan and Lithuania are important partners that share the values of freedom and democracy. Since the establishment of the
RSS