Thousands of protesters staged a demonstration in a Taipei County suburb yesterday to voice their support for the demolition of Lo Sheng Sanatorium and the mandatory eviction of its residents next month.
Sinjhuang is home to Lo Sheng Sanatorium, where thousands of people with Hansen's disease were once quarantined for life.
A plan to tear down most of the buildings on the 17-hectare site to make room for a Mass Rapid Transportation (MRT) depot has met with strong opposition.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Earlier this month, Taipei County authorities posted an eviction notice for Lo Sheng's residents ahead of the construction work.
A crowd, mobilized by lawmakers elected from the district and local politicians, marched from Sinjhuang City Hall to Lo Sheng Sanatorium while chanting slogans and holding up signs yesterday.
"We want the MRT for our survival!" Demonstrators shouted along the way.
The crowd consisted of around 8,000 people, police estimated.
The demonstrators said that the completion of an MRT line connecting Sinjhuang to Taipei was critical to the city's economic prosperity.
"Our hopes for improvement in Sinjhuang's economy lie in the MRT line, and we want no more delays," said Chang Lu-jui (
Chang and many other demonstrators say the controversy over Lo Sheng's preservation is responsible for delays in the completion of the MRT line.
"We the people of Sinjhuang have treated the lepers well enough, now they have to give in and make a sacrifice for the public," Chang said.
Taipei County Commissioner Chou Hsi-wei (
"We've waited for three years, do we want to wait any longer?" Chou asked the demonstrators in front of the Lo Sheng sanatorium.
In his speech, Chou also rejected a plan that aims to preserve 90 percent of buildings in the sanatorium while extending the construction period by only three to four months.
"The students [who support Lo Sheng's preservation] said that the 90 percent plan would only extend the construction period by three to four months," he said. "But it'll take at least one year or even longer."
The 90 percent preservation plan was proposed by some construction specialists in Taiwan based on evaluations by a UK construction consultant firm.
Supporters of Lo Sheng's preservation said yesterday they'd like to see the completion of the line.
"Of course we want to see the completion of the MRT line, it's good for everyone, that's why we called an open review of the 90 percent preservation plan," a preservationist said.
But Chou took the hard line.
"We posted a notice [for demolition] on March 16. When the deadline comes on April 16, the county government will act according to the law unless the Executive Yuan decides otherwise," Chou told the crowd.
also see story:
Why Lo Sheng must be preserved
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS