The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday demanded that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) “reveal her stance” on the abolition of the death penalty, which is supported by candidates of the New Power Party (NPP), which the DPP endorses.
KMT Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏), KMT Culture and Communications Committee director-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) and KMT Taipei City Councilor Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) criticized NPP legislative candidate Freddy Lim (林昶佐) over his burning of a Republic of China flag, and calls for the legalization of marijuana and the abolition of capital punishment.
The KMT officials asked whether Tsai endorses Lim’s actions and beliefs.
“NPP Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), Lim and Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸), the party’s district legislative candidates, are all for the abolition of capital punishment. Chairperson Tsai, do you support their stance?” Wang Hong-wei asked. “It is a question that should not be shunned.”
“There have been small, innocent children murdered in Taipei. Do we still want the death penalty to be abolished?” Alicia Wang asked.
“Seeing lives being taken and society plunged into fear by people like Cheng Chieh (鄭捷), do we still want to do away with capital punishment?” she asked.
Cheng attacked passengers on Taipei’s Mass Rapid Transit system on May 21, 2014, killing four people and injuring 22 on the Bannan Line.
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
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