Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) began a one-man protest in front of the Legislative Yuan yesterday and gave President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) a 24-hour deadline to respond to public grievances, threatening an indefinite hunger strike if Ma failed to answer.
Hsu, 70, asked Ma for affirmative responses on three issues — freezing fuel and electricity prices, keeping the ban on US beef imports containing ractopamine residues and a presidential pardon for former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is in prison for corruption — before 3pm today.
If Ma failed to respond by that time, Hsu said he would begin an indefinite hunger strike until Ma does.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
“I’m doing this because there is no way in Taiwan today that a disqualified president can be brought down and because Ma refuses to listen to the people,” Hsu said.
Hsu said he thought Ma should have responded to public suffering in his inauguration speech yesterday after Saturday’s massive protest organized by the DPP.
“A president of a true democracy could not possibly refuse to listen to the public. A democracy with an authoritarian leader is not a true democracy,” he said.
Since there was no feasible method to replace the president, despite an approval rate of 15 percent, and because recalling Ma was unlikely to work, Hsu said the only thing he could do was to “resort to an intensified individual protest and hope that people would follow my lead to force a change.”
Hsu, who is one of five candidates in the DPP chair-person election on Sunday, denied that his protest was a campaign tactic.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
PRAISE: Japanese visitor Takashi Kubota said the Taiwanese temple architecture images showcased in the AI Art Gallery were the most impressive displays he saw Taiwan does not have an official pavilion at the World Expo in Osaka, Japan, because of its diplomatic predicament, but the government-backed Tech World pavilion is drawing interest with its unique recreations of works by Taiwanese artists. The pavilion features an artificial intelligence (AI)-based art gallery showcasing works of famous Taiwanese artists from the Japanese colonial period using innovative technologies. Among its main simulated displays are Eastern gouache paintings by Chen Chin (陳進), Lin Yu-shan (林玉山) and Kuo Hsueh-hu (郭雪湖), who were the three young Taiwanese painters selected for the East Asian Painting exhibition in 1927. Gouache is a water-based
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
OFF-TARGET: More than 30,000 participants were expected to take part in the Games next month, but only 6,550 foreign and 19,400 Taiwanese athletes have registered Taipei city councilors yesterday blasted the organizers of next month’s World Masters Games over sudden timetable and venue changes, which they said have caused thousands of participants to back out of the international sporting event, among other organizational issues. They also cited visa delays and political interference by China as reasons many foreign athletes are requesting refunds for the event, to be held from May 17 to 30. Jointly organized by the Taipei and New Taipei City governments, the games have been rocked by numerous controversies since preparations began in 2020. Taipei City Councilor Lin Yen-feng (林延鳳) said yesterday that new measures by