Over 300 protesters from the Aboriginal community yesterday threw eggs at the Council of Indigenous Peoples (CIP) building yesterday, demanding the resignation of CIP Minister Chang Jen-hsiang (章仁香) for “betraying her own people” by disregarding tribespeople’s land and hunting rights.
The council denied the accusations and stressed it had always striven to preserve the rights of the community.
According to the Alliance to Safeguard the Aboriginal Basic Law, the council failed to protect two Aboriginal villages in Pingtung and Taitung County when Chang allegedly agreed to let the Atomic Energy Council (AEC) dump hazardous nuclear waste in the community.
In a statement, the CIP said the accusation was completely false because no AEC officials had visited Chang since she took up the position in May.
The alliance also asked the council to respect the Puyuma tribe’s traditional annual hunt by removing the requirement that they first obtain permission from the Forestry Bureau.
One Puyuma woman surnamed Chung said the annual hunt was an integral part of the tribe’s culture and did not understand why the tribe needed to seek the Forestry Bureau’s approval for the event that has been going on for over 100 years.
The CIP statement said that the Forestry Bureau was in charge of wildlife protection and therefore all hunting activity had to be cleared by the bureau.
Standing in the pouring rain in front of the CIP office in Taipei, protesters bused in from Pingtung, Taitung and Nantou demanded Chang face the crowd and give an explanation to the accusations leveled against her.
The angry protesters threw eggs at the building when Chang refused to meet them. The group later protested in front the Legislative Yuan, Executive Yuan and the Presidential Office.
About 100 protesters scaled a fence in an attempt to enter the Cabinet headquarters, clashing with more police.
Independent Legislator Kao Chin Su-mei (高金素梅), a member of the Atayal tribe, held a press conference at the same time as the protest echoing the demonstrators’ demands to remove Chang from office.
“The political party will continue to trample on our rights if we don’t make our voices heard. When that happens, we will not have a future,” she said, adding she would mobilize more street protesters if the Executive Yuan failed to name another CIP minister by Feb. 1.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
RSS