Culture preservation groups and Taoyuan residents yesterday protested a decision by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taoyuan Mayor Simon Chang (張善政) to remove items from a local Shinto shrine, while academics said that Japanese who travel to Taiwan to worship fear that all the shrine’s deities might be removed.
Fu Jen Catholic University law professor Yao Meng-chang (姚孟昌) said that since Chang became mayor, the city government has restricted freedom of religion by targeting places of worship that are important to the community.
The deities are facing expulsion to Japan, Yao said, referring to a shrine on Hutou Mountain (虎頭山) in the city’s Taoyuan District (桃園).
Photo: CNA
Protesters called the removal a “crude destruction of a cultural treasure.”
Meng said that many foreigners, including Chinese and Thai Buddhists, as well as Hindus from India, have come to him voicing concern over the city’s removal of deities and their looming return to their countries of origin.
“They are worried that their deities, their worship, could be banned,” he said.
Figurines of deities that are predominantly worshiped by foreigners in Taiwan pose no threat to social order, but the Chang administration does not respect their right to have places of worship in Taoyuan, he said.
The city government’s policy seeks to erase the collective memory of local events, he said, calling its actions unethical.
The National Human Rights Commission and the Executive Yuan should investigate the matter, he said.
The statement came after days of protests near the shrine, with demonstrators holding signs with slogans such as: “The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion,” “Why can a Japanese deity not reside in a Japanese shrine?” and “The Taoyuan City Government violates my freedom to worship.”
One protester told reporters that the shrine is the best preserved place of Shinto worship in Taiwan, saying that it attracts many visitors on weekends, including cosplayers and amateur photographers.
The protests began after Chang said that people had complained about the shrine, announcing that some items, including figurines of the deity Amaterasu Okami, would be removed.
The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) caucus in the Taoyuan City Council condemned the move, saying in a statement that the site, unlike many other Shinto shrines in Taiwan, was not dismantled in the 1950s because it was forcibly transformed into a martyrs’ shrine commemorating veterans of the Chinese Civil War.
It was reverted back to its original purpose under the administration of former Taoyuan mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) of the DPP, but with KMT back in power, the city government has embarked on a mission of “cultural cleansing,” the DPP caucus said.
“Some KMT officials still strongly cling to their outdated, feudal viewpoints of being Chinese,” which motivated the Chang administration to work toward removing the shrine’s deities, the DPP officials said.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Yangmingshan National Park authorities yesterday urged visitors to respect public spaces and obey the law after a couple was caught on a camera livestream having sex at the park’s Qingtiangang (擎天崗) earlier in the day. The Shilin Police Precinct in Taipei said it has identified a suspect and his vehicle registration number, and would summon him for questioning. The case would be handled in accordance with public indecency charges, it added. The couple entered the park at about 11pm on Thursday and began fooling around by 1am yesterday, the police said, adding that the two were unaware of the park’s all-day live
RSS