The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is planning a massive protest next month against what it says are President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) poor performance and his failure to listen to the public.
The DPP’s Central Standing Committee unanimously approved a resolution to authorize the establishment of a “520 task force” to plan for a massive rally around May 20, when Ma will be inaugurated for his second term, DPP spokesperson Lin Yu-chang (林右昌) said yesterday.
The committee decided that a protest was necessary because “Taiwanese are having a difficult time with their lives and cannot stand the Ma administration’s incompetence, injustice and its failure to listen to the voice of the people,” Lin said.
“That is why we are ready to take to the streets to voice our displeasure and protest, and to make the public’s anger visible to the president,” he added.
The task force, convened by DPP Legislator Pan Men-an (潘孟安), will study the appropriate date and location of the protest, given that the Taipei City Government has designated a large area around the Presidential Office as a restricted zone on May 20.
With the announcement, the DPP appears to have changed its tack, with interim DPP Chairperson Chen Chu (陳菊) earlier saying that the DPP, as a rational political party, would try to monitor the government in the legislature first and consider demonstrating as a last resort.
Through another unanimous resolution, the party reiterated its call for judicial and medical rights for ailing former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence for corruption, and insisted that the former president should be granted a release for medical treatment, Lin said.
According to the Constitution, only the president has the power to grant a presidential pardon, he said.
Representatives of various civic groups met Chen before the committee meeting, demanding the DPP restore the former president’s reputation and party membership, and support the petition for a presidential pardon.
The representatives also called on the DPP to lift a ban on its party members and legislators from signing an amnesty petition for Chen.
The DPP did not respond to the appeal.
The committee gave the DPP legislative caucus two more tasks — to promote legislation to designate April 7 as Freedom of Speech Day in honor of late democracy advocate Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) and to monitor the operations of state-run companies following controversial fuel and electricity price rises, Lin said.
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
‘MALIGN PURPOSE’: Governments around the world conduct espionage operations, but China’s is different, as its ultimate goal is annexation, a think tank head said Taiwan is facing a growing existential threat from its own people spying for China, experts said, as the government seeks to toughen measures to stop Beijing’s infiltration efforts and deter Taiwanese turncoats. While Beijing and Taipei have been spying on each other for years, experts said that espionage posed a bigger threat to Taiwan due to the risk of a Chinese attack. Taiwan’s intelligence agency said China used “diverse channels and tactics” to infiltrate the nation’s military, government agencies and pro-China organizations. The main targets were retired and active members of the military, persuaded by money, blackmail or pro-China ideology to steal
RSS