A crowd of people affected by government land seizures yesterday braved the forefront of Typhoon Nanmadol to rally outside the Executive Yuan and protest the “pre-auction” measure used in development projects, calling for negotiations with landowners.
“President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) talked about justice in housing and justice in land use, but we don’t feel he’s been sincere, because our problems have not been solved and everything continues as before,” MRT A7 Station Development Project Self-Help Group chairwoman Hsu Yu-hung (徐玉紅) said.
“We demand that the government stop the expropriation project and stop the ‘pre-auction,’ which has no legal basis,” Hsu said.
The “MRT A7 Station Development Project” refers to plans to create an industrial zone, a commercial zone, regular housing complexes and “suitable housing” complexes near the station, now temporarily named “A7,” along an express railroad connecting central Taipei and Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
Although the Ministry of the Interior, which initiated the project, said the project was to build “suitable housing complexes” to be sold at lower prices as a measure to cool down the skyrocketing real- estate market, affected residents believe the government is only trying to help land developers. This was because of the 186 hectares of land to be expropriated, only 9.7 hectares would be used to build “suitable housing,” while 43.52 hectares would be turned into an industrial zone and the rest would become regular housing or commercial zones.
Residents are also upset that, before the expropriation process has been completed, the government is already inviting bids.
“We still live here, we still have land ownership certificates in our hands, how could the government put our land on ‘pre-auction?’” Hsu asked. “The government says land ownership would not be transferred to a new owner until the expropriation process is completed. Well, this is like putting a knife to our throats and telling us: ‘Don’t worry, we won’t kill you right away.’”
Liao Pen-chuan (廖本全), an as-sociate professor in National Taipei University’s department of real estate and built environment, who attended the protest to show his support for the protesters’ demands, agreed with Shih.
“I want to ask the government three questions: First, there are already too many development projects, has the government done an evaluation on the public interests and necessity of the A7 development project? Second, what is the legal basis of ‘pre-auction’ and, third, who made the decision to put private land on ‘pre-auction?’” he asked.
“If the president cannot realize justice in housing and justice in land use for these people protesting here, he should just shut up,” Liao added.
After handing a petition to an official surnamed Lin of the ministry’s Department of Land Administration in front of the Executive Yuan, the protesters handed in a petition letter at the Presidential Office.
There was some minor verbal clashes and some pushing and shoving when the Executive Yuan initially sent a security officer to receive the petition.
Asked to comment on the “pre-auction,” Department of Land Administration Director Hsiao Fu-tao (蕭輔導) said that the measure had no basis in law, but defended it as a move to speed up the development project “since it would take too long if we do everything step-by-step.”
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater