Former New Taipei City deputy mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) was on Thursday criticized by the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation over comments he made about his involvement in an incident in 1989 which led to democracy activist Deng Nan-jung’s (鄭南榕) self-immolation.
Hou was clearly avoiding taking any responsibility because of his participation in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) New Taipei City mayoral primary, the foundation said in a statement in response to remarks Hou made in an interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) that he was only following orders when he led a group of police officers who surrounded and attempted to enter Deng’s office at Freedom Era Weekly (自由時代) magazine in January 1989.
Deng was charged with sedition for publishing a draft “Taiwan Republic Constitution” in his magazine.
On April 7, 1989, the 71st day of his self-imprisonment at the magazine, Deng set himself on fire.
At the time Hou was head of the Taipei Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division.
In the interview Hou said that, apart from attempting to make a warranted arrest, the police’s mission was also about saving a life, adding that it was “not completely successful.”
Deng had publicly declared at the time that “the KMT will only take my body; they will never take me alive,” the foundation said, adding that Hou should have understood that clear message.
“Former Nazi SS member Oskar Groening never personally killed anyone, but in 2015, at the age of 94, he was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people and sentenced to four years in prison for his involvement in the genocide at the Auschwitz concentration camp,” the foundation said.
Hou’s claim that he was trying to “save a life” is hypocritical and is an attempt to cover up the truth, the foundation added.
“Avoiding the truth of the past is a secondary injury,” Deng Nan-jung’s daughter, Deng Chu-mei (鄭竹梅), said in a statement issued by the foundation in response to Hou’s comments.
As potential a candidate for a mayoral position, [Hou] should explain in detail his philosophy about the past so that it can be assessed by voters, Deng Chu-mei said.
Hou should not use upsetting Deng Nan-jung’s family as an excuse to avoid talking about it, she added.
When asked about the foundation and Deng Chu-mei’s response, Hou said he understands, embraces and respects the opinions of Deng Nan-jung’s family.
Additional reporting by Yeh Kuan-yu
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS