Thousands of Muslims, many of whom are workers from Indonesia, yesterday gathered at Taipei Railway Station for Eid al-Fitr, a celebration that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
At 8am, Muslims began filling the lobby of the station, a favorite gathering spot for Southeast Asians in northern Taiwan at weekends.
By 10am, about 15,000 visitors visitors had arrived, with a further 30,000 coming into the station to escape the rain at noon, far surpassing the station’s capacity of 5,000 people, Taipei Railway Station Master Huang Jung-hua (黃榮華) said.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“Eid al-Fitr is very important to Muslims, much like Lunar New Year is to us. While we sincerely apologize to passengers for any inconvenience that might have been caused by the unusually high number of visitors to the station today, we also hope that passengers will respect the cultures of different peoples,” he said.
Huang said that since the station was renovated four years ago to include a large central courtyard, Muslim migrant workers have increasingly begun to adopt it as a gathering place during Eid al-Fitr.
“Taipei Railway Station respects this use of the station and hopes all passengers can see the gathering from a positive and friendly perspective. After all, this is a once-in-a-year celebration for these people,” Huang said. “We appreciate the patience of passengers despite the inconvenience they might experience today [Sunday].”
According to Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) officials, in addition to regular staff, 60 employees from the TRA, the Taipei locomotive depot, the Association for the Integration of Migrant Workers and the Taipei Grand Mosque Society, as well as an additional five cleaning staff members, were assigned to ensure the safe and normal operation of the station.
Police officers have also been brought in to assist railway police in maintaining public safety in the area of the station, the officials added.
The arrangements made by the TRA to offer Muslims a space at Taipei Railway Station for the celebration was a positive move, said Agusdin Subiantoro, deputy director of Indonesia’s National Agency for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers, in Jakarta.
However, he said he hoped that venues could be set up in Taiwan specifically for Indonesian workers to congregate for religious events.
Meanwhile, the Taipei City government also held a one-day event at Expo Park for Indonesian and other Muslims to celebrate Eid al-Fitr. The celebrations included performances by Indonesian singer Siti Badriah and several bands, including Real Play, Marya Isma and the Reggae Rasta Kurawa Band.
Additional reporting by CNA
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS