Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen’s (蘇治芬) hunger strike in protest against her indictment for corruption entered its fifth day yesterday. Her husband, retired National Taiwan University professor Huang Wu-hsiung (黃武雄), visited her at the hospital and urged her to take medication for stomach cramps.
Saying that his wife had shouldered the heavy cross of democracy and defended it with her life, Huang added he had told his wife to unload that cross and take care of her health. He said that Su only agreed to take the cramp medication after he brought out a photograph of their son.
Su, a member of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), began her hunger strike on Tuesday, shortly after being detained over her alleged involvement in corruption connected to the construction of a county landfill project.
Prosecutors offered to release her on NT$6 million (US$183,000) bail on Wednesday, but she refused, saying that she did not have that kind of money.
“I told her to open her mouth — it was our son who was feeding her, and she obliged,” said Huang, who is suffering from two types of cancer. “I told her ‘be calm, be calm, don’t resist anymore.’”
Su would guard her reputation with her life and not eat anything until her innocence was proven, Huang said.
Huang said Su had told him in a weak voice that she was innocent.
The increasingly frail Su was rushed to the hospital from Yunlin County’s Prison Detention House on Friday after her refusal to eat caused her health to deteriorate.
After visiting Su in the hospital yesterday with a letter from former DPP chairman Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) told Su’s supporters outside that the commissioner’s physical condition was not good.
To prevent the hospital from injecting glucose into her blood while she was asleep, Su had fought to stay awake, Chen said, adding that Su’s blood sugar level had plummeted to 58mg/dL, while the normal level on an empty stomach is 70mg/dL to 110mg/dL, and 120mg/dL after eating.
Chen said that as Su valued her reputation more than her life, and as a compatriot in her cause, she could not ask Su to eat.
Other DPP members, including former DPP chairman Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and DPP caucus whip William Lai (賴清德), also visited Su.
Super Typhoon Kong-rey is the largest cyclone to impact Taiwan in 27 years, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. Kong-rey’s radius of maximum wind (RMW) — the distance between the center of a cyclone and its band of strongest winds — has expanded to 320km, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. The last time a typhoon of comparable strength with an RMW larger than 300km made landfall in Taiwan was Typhoon Herb in 1996, he said. Herb made landfall between Keelung and Suao (蘇澳) in Yilan County with an RMW of 350km, Chang said. The weather station in Alishan (阿里山) recorded 1.09m of
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The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday at 5:30pm issued a sea warning for Typhoon Kong-rey as the storm drew closer to the east coast. As of 8pm yesterday, the storm was 670km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) and traveling northwest at 12kph to 16kph. It was packing maximum sustained winds of 162kph and gusts of up to 198kph, the CWA said. A land warning might be issued this morning for the storm, which is expected to have the strongest impact on Taiwan from tonight to early Friday morning, the agency said. Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) and Green Island (綠島) canceled classes and work
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
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