Residents of Taipei’s Huaguang (華光) community gathered in front of the Ministry of Justice in the capital yesterday, bringing along rubble to protest against the ministry’s forced demolition of their homes.
The controversy over the land on which the community stands began in 2006 after a project to transform it into one of the four economic and digital technology centers was unveiled.
In 2009, the area was rezoned as a commercial rather than residential area.
Photo: CNA
Last year, the Executive Yuan approved plans to remodel the area into a “second Roppongi district” — a district in Tokyo famed for its nightclubs — and officials began measuring all the buildings in the designated area in November.
Although the Executive Yuan initially intended to demolish the entire area before Dec. 31, then-Executive Yuan secretary-general Steven Chen (陳士魁) decided that the project overlapped with urban renewal projects and turned over the remodeling of the area to the Construction and Planning Administration.
Located close to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and spanning 11 hectares of land, the community — where the demolition of buildings was scheduled to begin yesterday — has been home to soldiers and their famlilies who were unable to obtain living quarters after the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) relocated to Taiwan in 1949.
Following the first wave of demolitions last month, during which seven buildings were bulldozed, the ministry demolished two more buildings on Hangzhou Road yesterday.
About 30 residents and their supporters placed pieces of a demolished wall and other rubble in front of the Ministry of Justice in protest.
Police warnings that they would remove the rubble sparked outrage among the residents, who said the government was now trying to take even the rubble after it had already robbed them of their homes.
Wearing white shirts printed with blood stains, the residents lay on the ground in protest, accusing the ministry of violating their human rights and attempting to manipulate the judicial system to force them into a tight corner.
The residents left the site after calling for the demolition to be halted until the government comes up with an acceptable relocation plan, punctuating their last call with a rush at police guarding the ministry.
Meanwhile, ministry official Yang Ho-chin (楊合進) said that the government was executing its legal duty to demolish the properties before turning the land over to the Ministry of Finance.
Legally, the justice ministry cannot delay the demolition process, Yang said, adding that the Taipei City Government had agreed to provide 57 public housing units to help with the relocation of Huaguang community residents.
The Ministry of Justice planned to meet with community residents to discuss the issue yesterday, but the residents said that as they had not received any formal notification from the government about the meeting they refused to attend.
The heads of three major US banks on Wednesday pledged that they would withdraw from the Chinese market if Washington imposed sanctions on Beijing in response to an invasion of Taiwan. JP Morgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon, Bank of America chairman and CEO Brian Moynihan and Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser told lawmakers at a hearing of the US House of Representatives Committee on Financial Services in Washington that the three banks would follow the guidance of the US government to exit China if necessary. The three bankers made the pledge after US Representative Blaine Luetkemeyer asked the three if they
CHINA CRITIC: Prime ministerial candidate Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner in today’s election, said that she would not renew a Belt and Road Initiative deal with Beijing Italian lawmaker Giorgia Meloni, the front-runner to become the country’s next prime minister, is expected to reverse course on Italy’s support for China’s Belt and Road Initiative and strengthen ties with Taiwan if a coalition headed by her party wins the country’s general election today. “Without any doubt, if there is a center-right government, it is sure that Taiwan will be an essential concern for Italy,” Meloni told the Central News Agency in an interview. Italians are to vote in a snap election triggered by the resignation of Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi following a failed attempt to get his coalition partners
HIGH STAKES: An attack on Taiwan could prompt a joint response from the US and Japan, and trigger a global conflict that could bring down the CCP, Liu Tai-ying said The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) would not be able to launch an invasion of Taiwan for at least another 10 years, Taiwan Research Institute founder Liu Tai-ying (劉泰英) said on Friday. To occupy Taiwan, China needs to transport at least 300,000 to 400,000 troops across the Taiwan Strait during battle, but it would lack the ability to do so for at least another decade, said Liu, a former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) treasurer and a close aide to former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). The challenges that China would face during an attempted invasion of Taiwan would be even greater than those
CASELOADS FALLING: The nation’s latest COVID-19 wave seems to have peaked sooner than expected and the CECC has drawn up plans to reopen the border Changes in daily COVID-19 caseloads over the next couple of weeks would affect the timing of the border being reopened, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday as it reported 46,673 new local and 229 imported cases, as well as 39 deaths. The CECC had previously predicted that a wave of infections fueled by the Omicron BA.5 subvariant of SARS-CoV-2 would peak yesterday. Yesterday’s caseload was 6 percent lower than Wednesday last week and the decline was evident across the nation, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Chou Jih-haw (周志浩), head of the CECC’s disease surveillance division. Deputy Minister of Health
RSS