As of Wednesday, 403 authoritarian symbols had been removed or were scheduled for removal, while 537 were still in place, Transitional Justice Commission data showed yesterday, although the Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Education and the Veterans Affairs Council had yet to report on such symbols under their jurisdiction.
More than 40 statues or other authoritarian symbols have been excised since August last year, after the central government removed an additional 11 and local governments eliminated 32, data showed.
However, the status of the 410 items managed by the ministries of defense and education is unclear.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
Of the 537 symbols still remaining in public areas, 84 are managed by the central government and 453 by local governments, although the figure does not include those managed by the three agencies.
Kaohsiung, as well as Miaoli, Yunlin, Hualien and Penghu counties, also had yet to respond to the commission.
The Presidential Office manages four statues, all of which are at former president Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) mausoleum in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪), and have not been removed, the data showed.
The Legislative Yuan has agreed to remove the bronze statue of former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from its service center in Taichung, but as it is located on the grounds of the former Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council, officials are deliberating whether it should be considered a cultural asset, the commission said.
The Examination Yuan is also to change the names of three locations and remove two bronze statues under its jurisdiction, it added.
Of the 14 authoritarian symbols managed by the Ministry of the Interior, nine statues are to be removed and five names changed, including Zhongzheng Hall (中正堂) on the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島), which has already been renamed, it said.
Two statues managed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs have yet to be removed, including a large bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek in a long robe and magua at Taoyuan’s Shihmen Reservoir (石門水庫), which is inside a paid scenic area, the report said.
Meanwhile, the Veterans Affairs Council has moved five of the 61 authoritarian symbols under its jurisdiction to storage or the National Property Administration, and is awaiting approval for them to be removed permanently, the commission said.
A bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek remains at the National Palace Museum in Taipei, as do two administered by the Council of Agriculture, it added.
The Ministry of Culture manages 13 statues, one of which is at the Green Island White Terror Memorial Park, while the rest are at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, it said, adding that 12 are still in place.
The commission said that it this month plans to submit recommendations for dealing with the memorial hall.
In addition to the Veterans Affairs Council’s efforts, Taipei has agreed to remove 40 authoritarian symbols, while all three of Chiayi City’s bronze statues have been eliminated, a commissioner told reporters, vowing to continue negotiating with central government agencies and local governments to remove those remaining.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,