The dissolution of the National Women’s League was made official yesterday with a document from the Ministry of Interior (MOI).
The ministry ordered the dissolution because the league refused to transform into a political party in accordance with the the Political Parties Act (政黨法) before a government deadline.
The league was founded in 1950 by Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) wife, Soong Mayling (宋美齡), to provide care for military families.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
According to the act, which took effect on Dec. 6, 2017, all political groups had to revise their charters and transform into political parties within two years following the promulgation of the regulations.
The deadline had been due to expire on Dec. 6 last year, but the ministry extended it for four months to allow the league to make preparations, Deputy Minister of Interior Hua Ching-chun (花敬群) said.
However, as it refused to comply, the ministry was forced to order its dissolution, Hua said.
National Women’s League chair Joanna Lei (雷倩) said that members on Oct. 16 last year voted against becoming a party.
In a news release on Sunday, Lei said that the ministry should not dissolve the group, as it was transforming into a public welfare foundation.
The transformation order was a breach of the Constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly and association, she said.
The league decided against becoming a party out of concern that it would continue to be subject to political persecution by the government’s Ill-gotten Party Assets Settlement Committee, she said.
The committee in February 2018 ruled that the league was affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and in March last year it froze NT$38.7 billion (US$1.29 billion at the current exchange rate) of its assets, ruling that they belong to the state.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
Labor rights groups yesterday called on the Ministry of Labor to protect migrant workers in Taiwan’s fishing industry, days after CNN reported alleged far-ranging abuses in the sector, including deaths and forced work. The ministry must enforce domestic labor protection laws on Taiwan-owned deep-sea fishing vessels, the Coalition for Human Rights for Migrant Fishers told a news conference outside the ministry in Taipei after presenting a petition to officials. CNN on Sunday reported that Taiwanese seafood giant FCF Co, the owners of the US-based Bumble Bee Foods, committed human rights abuses against migrant fishers, citing Indonesian migrant fishers. The alleged abuses included denying