The funeral of veteran human rights and social activist Lynn Miles was held yesterday in Taipei, with Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and a number of democracy advocates paying tribute to Miles and his work.
Offering a sunflower and a glass of beer while holding Miles’ hand, Tsai expressed gratitude for Miles’ contribution to the nation’s movement for democracy during the White Terror era.
Tsai made a brief stop at the Taipei Municipal Second Funeral Parlor before traveling to Kinmen for campaign events.
Former DPP chairperson Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良), who participated in the democracy movement from the 1970s through the 1990s, remembered Miles.
“Miles worked in the campaign to rescue political prisoners in Taiwan in the 1970s and the 1980s, and helped blacklisted Taiwanese political dissidents living in exile to return home,” Hsu said. “When I served as the DPP chairperson [from 1992 to 1993 and then from 1996 to 1998], he offered a great deal of help in the party’s international campaigns.”
US-born democracy activist Linda Arrigo, former presidential adviser Roger Hsieh (謝聰敏) and former Yunlin County commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬) also attended the ceremony.
Miles, who came from the US to Taiwan in the 1970s to study Mandarin Chinese, later became involved in the nation’s democracy movement before eventually being expelled.
He helped provide the names of political prisoners in Taiwan to overseas human rights groups, contributing to international rescue efforts.
Miles passed away in Taipei on Monday at the age of 72.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS