New Power Party (NPP) Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) yesterday called for an independent investigation into allegations that police used excessive force during a protest in Taipei on Friday.
The Railway Bureau on Tuesday last week began tearing down the three remaining homes that stood in the way of a planned railway relocation project.
Having been unsuccessful in their protests in Tainan, a group of students on Friday traveled to Taipei to protest in front of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.
Photo: Cheng Wei-chi, Taipei Times
However, after the protest turned violent, police began restraining people, including a journalist from an online media company, Chiu said, adding that there were allegations that police used excessive force as they held people down on the ground while restraining them.
During a meeting of the legislature’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday, at which Control Yuan Secretary-General Chu Fu-mei (朱富美) was invited to speak, Chiu and NPP Legislator Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) brought up the allegations and called for an independent investigation by the Control Yuan’s National Human Rights Committee.
In the second national report on investigations regarding the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights, there were eight issues related to forced evictions and relocation, housing justice and land expropriation, Chiu said.
The National Human Rights Committee had on Aug. 1 discussed whether to investigate the railway relocation project, Chiu added.
Chu said that following an investigation in 2013, the committee asked the Tainan City Government to improve communication with residents and report on its progress every six months.
However, the investigation was never concluded, she said.
Chiu asked Chu whether she agreed with the argument by the Taipei Police Department’s Zhongzheng First Precinct that officers were empowered to use force to restrain protesters in accordance with Article 19 of the Police Power Exercise Act (警察職權行使法).
The article stipulates: “The police may bring a person under control if he/she ... [is] being insane or drunk to the degree that makes restraint necessary in order to avert a situation that may endanger his/her life or prevent danger to the life or health of another person.”
Chu said there was “room for discussion on the issue” and that she would bring up the issue with the committee.
Chen said there were also concerns that during the protest, after a scuffle broke out between police and protesters, two male officers allegedly forced a female student to the ground.
“Is that not a clear violation of human rights and the principle of proportionality?” she asked.
Beijing could eventually see a full amphibious invasion of Taiwan as the only "prudent" way to bring about unification, the US Department of Defense said in a newly released annual report to Congress. The Pentagon's "Annual Report to Congress: Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China 2025," was in many ways similar to last year’s report but reorganized the analysis of the options China has to take over Taiwan. Generally, according to the report, Chinese leaders view the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) capabilities for a Taiwan campaign as improving, but they remain uncertain about its readiness to successfully seize
Taiwan is getting a day off on Christmas for the first time in 25 years. The change comes after opposition parties passed a law earlier this year to add or restore five public holidays, including Constitution Day, which falls on today, Dec. 25. The day marks the 1947 adoption of the constitution of the Republic of China, as the government in Taipei is formally known. Back then the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) governed China from Nanjing. When the KMT, now an opposition party in Taiwan, passed the legislation on holidays, it said that they would help “commemorate the history of national development.” That
Taiwan has overtaken South Korea this year in per capita income for the first time in 23 years, IMF data showed. Per capita income is a nation’s GDP divided by the total population, used to compare average wealth levels across countries. Taiwan also beat Japan this year on per capita income, after surpassing it for the first time last year, US magazine Newsweek reported yesterday. Across Asia, Taiwan ranked fourth for per capita income at US$37,827 this year due to sustained economic growth, the report said. In the top three spots were Singapore, Macau and Hong Kong, it said. South
Snow fell on Yushan (Jade Mountain, 玉山) yesterday morning as a continental cold air mass sent temperatures below freezing on Taiwan’s tallest peak, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Snowflakes were seen on Yushan’s north peak from 6:28am to 6:38am, but they did not fully cover the ground and no accumulation was recorded, the CWA said. As of 7:42am, the lowest temperature recorded across Taiwan was minus-5.5°C at Yushan’s Fengkou observatory and minus-4.7°C at the Yushan observatory, CWA data showed. On Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County, a low of 1.3°C was recorded at 6:39pm, when ice pellets fell at Songsyue Lodge (松雪樓), a
RSS