Lawyers for the Buddhist Compassionate Relief Tzu Chi Foundation (慈濟功德會) yesterday said that the organization's founder Master Cheng Yen (證嚴法師) had decided not to appeal a civil lawsuit in the "pool of blood" defamation case.
Foundation spokesman Ho Jih-sheng (何日生) said that throughout the two-year lawsuit Cheng Yen had never intended to win anything but had tried to communicate with the complainants in the hope of settling out of court.
According to testimony given to the court in the original case, Cheng Yen visited a private clinic in Hualien 37 years ago and saw a pool of blood on the ground. She was told the blood was from an Aboriginal woman named Chen Chiou-en (陳秋吟), who had suffered a miscarriage. Chen could not pay an advance payment of NT$8,000 to get treatment and died on the way home.
Cheng Yen has since presented this story many times as her inspiration to establish a hospital that would never reject any patient. But she never mentioned the name of the doctor or clinic involved.
However, the family of Dr. Chuang Ju-kuei (莊汝貴), the doctor who sent his patient home for insufficient funds, sued Cheng Yen after her follower Lee Man-mei (李滿妹) identified the doctor as the owner of the clinic.
Last month Cheng Yen lost a civil lawsuit and was ordered to pay NT$1.01 million to Chuang.
Earlier this month, an Aboriginal man Chen Wen-chien (陳文謙), who had claimed to be one of the young Aboriginal men who had carried the woman to the clinic 37 years ago, confirmed Cheng Yen's story in a press conference.
Questioning the outcome of the civil case, Ho said that Tzu Chi lawyers had never questioned Chuang's character or medical ethics in public during the lawsuit, yet judges concluded that Chuang had made no mistakes when practicing medicine, thereby finding Cheng Yen at fault in the civil lawsuit.
"The wound won't heal if we continue to appeal," Cheng Yen said on Tuesday night.
Despite the controversial suit coming to an end, Master Shih Chao-hui (釋昭慧) of Buddhist Hongshi Institute said she would work with religious and human-rights groups to erect a monument in Hsinshe (新社) village of Hualien, the deceased woman's hometown, to commemorate "that tragedy" and express her sincere apologies to the indigenous people. Shih said this case underlines the unfair treatment indigenous people have to suffer.
In response to Cheng Yen's decision not to appeal, the Chuang family's lawyer Lu Sheng-hsien (呂勝賢) said yesterday that the family accepted the decision but still believed that the "pool of blood" story was purely fictional.
"Lee told Cheng Yen that the blood had been left by Chen Chiou-en and said publicly that she knew this because she went to Dr. Chuang's clinic a lot. But when she testified in court, she told the judge that she had only gone to the clinic once," Lu said.
When the judge showed Lee a picture of Chen Chiou-en and asked her to identify her, Lee replied that she was sure the woman in the picture was indeed Chen, Lu said.
"The judge was not convinced by Lee's testimony because Lee's reaction was strange. How could she identify someone she had met only once 37 years ago so firmly?" Lu asked.
Lu also quoted the ruling of the Hualien District Court that said that Chen Wen-chien's testimony was full of contradictions.
"All the question marks raised by Lee and Chen Wen-chien's testimonies indicate that the story told by Cheng Yen of the so-called `pool of blood' was entirely fictional," Lu said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
RSS