Anti-casino activists yesterday accused Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) of using the referendum system as a policy instrument, and demanded that the Executive Yuan withdraw the draft bill that would allow the establishment of gambling facilities in Matsu.
Jiang’s remarks on Monday that a national referendum on any issue, including the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Gongliao District (貢寮), should not circumvent the thresholds enshrined in the Referendum Act (公民投票法) prompted a protest by anti-casino activists yesterday.
“When the government wants to see a referendum pass, a simple majority vote is required, while when it wants to see a referendum fail, there is a very high turnout threshold,” former Green Party spokesperson Pan Han-shen (潘瀚聲) said as a group of activists staged a protest outside the Executive Yuan compound in Taipei.
Pan said that Jiang was lying when he said that controversial issues such as whether to abolish the death penalty or to legalize gambling or the sex trade should all be subject to the threshold of 50 percent of eligible voters under the Referendum Act.
The referendum held in 2009 in Penghu County and another referendum held in 2012 in Matsu County, both seeking residents’ views on whether to allow casino resorts in their hometowns, were decided by a simple majority in line with the Off-shore Islands Development Act (離島建設條例) rather than the Referendum Act, Pan said.
Following the referendum in Matsu that saw 1,795 votes in favor and 1,341 against among 3,164 ballots cast, or a turnout rate of 40.76 percent, the Executive Yuan proposed a draft statute in May last year as a legal basis to allow the building of a casino.
The draft statute is still pending deliberation in the legislature.
Given that Jiang was opposed to the proposal suggested by anti-nuclear activists that a referendum on the nuclear issue be decided by simple majority because that the result could be unconvincing, the 2012 referendum in Matsu should be deemed invalid and the draft act on casinos should be revoked, Pan said.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS