Civic groups and victims’ families will take to the street today to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the 228 Incident, with the focus on former premier Hau Pei-tsun (郝柏村) and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), whose recent controversial remarks on the 228 Massacre have sparked heavy criticism.
Dozens of civic groups will join the victims’ families in the march under the theme of “self-salvation to protect Taiwan,” which will take them from Yongle Market (永樂市場) to the end point of Dadaocheng wharf (大稻埕碼頭), where they will release water lanterns to pay tribute to those who perished in the massacre that began in 1947.
In a violent suppression of anti-government uprisings that began on Feb. 28, 1947 — 16 months after the end of Japanese colonial rule — Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) troops killed between 18,000 and 30,000 people, the majority of them Taiwanese and including many leaders and intellectuals.
Photo: Yu Hsueh-lan, Taipei Times
The march, which is scheduled to begin at 2:28pm, will pass the former location of the Tianma Tea House (天馬茶房) on Nanjing W Road, where a government investigator shot a citizen to death, resulting in the uprising 65 years ago, before arriving at the wharf for a ceremony, said Taipei City 228 Justice Care Association president Chen Yi-shen (陳儀深), one of the organizers.
However, much attention in the march will be focused on Hau and Ma’s controversial comments.
Hau first sparked controversy with an op-ed piece in the Chinese--language United Daily News on Feb. 21 in which he said that no more than 1,000 people were killed in the massacre, a far cry from government-supported research that concluded more than 18,000 had been killed.
Ma dismissed Hau’s comments on Friday, but stirred up more criticism after he said “the focus of the [228] Incident is not on the number of people that were killed.”
Chen, Taiwan 228 Care Association chairman Chang Yen-hsien (張炎憲) and other civic group leaders are scheduled to respond to Hau and Ma’s comments.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝) is also scheduled to memorialize the dead and highlight Taiwan’s democratic movement in a speech.
Democratic Progressive Party Chairperson (DPP) Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) will not attend the event.
The march will start a series of nationwide commemorative events, including a ceremony at Keelung Harbor on March 8, because the KMT troops landed in Keelung on March 8, 1947, and a second march on March 25 in Chiayi City, where people were publicly executed in front of the Chiayi Rail Station by KMT troops.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
RSS