Hundreds of people — including film director Leon Dai (戴立忍) — have challenged Le Young Construction (樂揚建設) to sue them after the company filed a slander lawsuit against a Taipei National University of the Arts (TNUA) student.
The student, Huang Hui-yu (黃慧瑜), posted a comment critical of the firm’s actions surrounding an urban renewal project on her Facebook page.
“To Le Young Construction, the following remark, in quotation marks, is exactly the same as the comment that TNUA student Huang Hui-yu wrote on her Facebook page,” Tai said on his own Facebook page.
Photo: Huang Chi-hao, Taipei Times
“I’ve heard that your respected company has filed a slander lawsuit against Huang for the remark. If this is so, please also file a slander lawsuit against me, thank you,” he wrote.
Huang, a graduate student at the TNUA and a member of the Taiwan Alliance for Victims of Urban Renewal, criticized several construction firms that have initiated urban renewal projects — including Le Young — as “notorious” and hinted they have connections to the mafia.
Le Young Construction, which labels itself as “the No. 1 brand in urban renewal,” is the initiator of the urban renewal project in Taipei City’s Shilin District (士林), which involves demolishing a block of decades-old apartments to make way for a 15-story high-rise luxury housing complex.
Although most of the property owners on the block agreed to the project, a family surnamed Wang (王) that owned two homes there refused to take part and wanted to keep their homes.
However, because the Wangs did not express their objections in writing in the project’s initial phase and because more than 75 percent of the property owners on the block agreed to the project, the Wangs’ homes were forcefully demolished on March 28 by a demolition squad sent by the city government. The demolition squad was escorted by more than 1,000 police officers.
According to the Urban Renewal Act (都市更新條例), the initiator of an urban renewal project may ask the city government to demolish the properties of those who do not wish to take part in the project, as long as three quarters of property owners on the site agree to the project.
On March 28, about 400 people — many of them college students — rallied outside the Wangs’ properties trying to stop the demolition. They were all removed by force and arrested after physical clashes with the police.
Later on, protesters broke down the construction fence and returned to the site where the Wangs’ homes once stood, and continued to protest.
Le Young last week filed lawsuits against Wang Kuang-shu (王廣樹), head of the Wang family, for breaking the fence and against Huang over her criticism of the company.
Immediately after Tai’s Facebook post, supporters of the Wangs launched an activity on Facebook to post the same statement as Huang and Tai, challenging Le Young to sue them as well.
“I can’t do anything with my friends in person to show support for the Wangs since I’m not in Taipei, but it’s a way of expressing my support if I could also be sued,” Benla Kuang (管中祥), an associate professor at National Chungcheng University’s Department of Communications, said on his Facebook page.
Besides posting the statement to invite a lawsuit, Mickey Lin (林彥瑜), a junior student at National Taiwan University’s Department of Politics, said she would like to launch a fundraising drive to hire an attorney for Huang.
“If they [Le Young] crush the students in this battle, there would be less students willing to stand up for injustices in society and more parents would try to stop their children from taking part in public issues,” Lin said on Facebook.
“Students are penniless and powerless, but we have a conscience and passion that could touch many people,” she said.
GEARING UP: An invasion would be difficult and would strain China’s forces, but it has conducted large-scale training supporting an invasion scenario, the report said China increased its military pressure on Taiwan last year and took other steps in preparation for a potential invasion, an annual report published by the US Department of Defense on Wednesday showed. “Throughout 2023, Beijing continued to erode longstanding norms in and around Taiwan by employing a range of pressure tactics against Taiwan,” the report said, which is titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China (PRC) 2024.” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) “is preparing for a contingency to unify Taiwan with the PRC by force, if perceived as necessary by Beijing, while simultaneously deterring, delaying or denying
‘ONE BRIDGE’: The US president-elect met with Akie Abe on Dec. 15 in Florida and the two discussed a potential Taiwan-China conflict’s implications for world peace US president-elect Donald Trump has described Taiwan as “a major issue for world peace” during a meeting with Akie Abe, the widow of late Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Japanese newspaper the Yomiuri Shimbun quoted sources as saying in a report yesterday. Trump met with Akie Abe on Dec. 15 at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, where the two discussed the Russo-Ukrainian war and the situation in the Taiwan Strait. During the meeting, Trump spoke on the implications for world peace of a potential Taiwan-China conflict, which “indicated his administration’s stance of placing importance on dealing with the situation in
QUICK LOOK: The amendments include stricter recall requirements and Constitutional Court procedures, as well as a big increase in local governments’ budgets Portions of controversial amendments to tighten requirements for recalling officials and Constitutional Court procedures were passed by opposition lawmakers yesterday following clashes between lawmakers in the morning, as Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members tried to block Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators from entering the chamber. Parts of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) and Constitutional Court Procedure Act (憲法訴訟法) passed the third reading yesterday. The legislature was still voting on various amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) as of press time last night, after the session was extended to midnight. Amendments to Article 4
ALLIANCE: Washington continues to implement its policy of normalizing arms sales to Taiwan and helps enhance its defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said US President Joe Biden on Friday agreed to provide US$571.3 million in defense support for Taiwan, the White House said, while the US State Department approved the potential sale of US$265 million in military equipment. Biden had delegated to the secretary of state the authority “to direct the drawdown of up to US$571.3 million in defense articles and services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training, to provide assistance to Taiwan,” the White House said in a statement. However, it did not provide specific details about this latest package, which was the third of its kind to
RSS