Tainan County Commissioner Su Huan-chih (蘇煥智), along with a number of civic groups, yesterday called on the public to join a demonstration in Taipei on Saturday against the government's decision to lift the ban on US bone-in beef and beef organs.
“We urge everybody — regardless of your political stance — to join us on Saturday in a demonstration to demand that the Legislative Yuan pass amendments to ban ground beef, bone-in beef and beef organs from countries where mad cow disease has been found,” Su told a news conference at the legislature. “We also call on the government to listen to what the public wants and renegotiate with the US on the beef agreement.”
The rally is being organized by dozens of local governments, civic groups and politicians, including the governments of Tainan and Yunlin counties and Tainan City, the Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP), the Citizen Congress Watch and the Taiwan Labour Front (TLF).
The government’s announcement late last month that it would lift the ban has generated criticism from some members of the public and lawmakers across party lines.
“It's clear that there's a big gap between the government’s decision and what the public wants,” Su said. “So this demonstration is for something beyond party interests and is for the health of the generations to come.”
He said mad cow disease can have an incubation period of up to 10 or 20 years and could contaminate the food chain in the country, since kitchen waste is usually used to feed pigs on farms.
TLF secretary-general Son Yu-lian (孫友聯) said that mad cow disease “does not have a term that would expire like politicians do, and the contamination in the food chain is not something that can easily be solved by politicians’ promises.”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party caucuses reached a consensus earlier this month to amend the Act Governing Food Sanitation (食品衛生管理法) next week to prevent bone-in beef and beef organs from infected countries from being imported.
However, there has been speculation that the KMT caucus might eventually withdraw from the deal given pressure from top officials in the government.
“This is why we’re calling on as many people as possible to stand up on Saturday, so that KMT lawmakers would feel the pressure,” DPP caucus whip Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮) said.
TAUP chairman Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深) said the rally was a protest not only against the lifting of the ban, but also the government making decisions behind closed doors.
“We want to make it clear that this is not an anti-US demonstration,” Chen said.
He said the US remained an important partner in politics and in business, but partnership between the two nations should not be maintained at the cost of public health.
The demonstration will start at the Zhongxiao Fuxing MRT station at 2pm and end on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, where a rally will take place until 9pm.
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