Legal reforms and transitional justice are likely to be priorities for the New Power Party (NPP) in the new legislative session, NPP legislator-elect Hung Tzu-yung (洪慈庸) said yesterday.
She and members of the Judicial Reform Foundation accompanied Wang Tsai-lien (王彩蓮), the mother of Chiang Kuo-ching (江國慶), to petition the Taipei District Court to order the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to file charges against former minister of defense Chen Chao-min (陳肇敏) for his role in Chiang’s wrongful execution.
“I believe I bear certain responsibilities, which I am obligated to complete — just like today’s case, the issue of human rights within the military is something I will work hard on in the future,” said Hung, the sister of late corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), who rose to prominence after her brother’s controversial death in July 2013, just days before his discharge from compulsory military service.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“I feel strongly that legal reform and transitional justice are areas in which we have to keep working and will be a key part of our future efforts,” Hung Tzu-yung said, adding that the party’s legislators-elect are still discussing which committees to angle for.
She expressed her regret that the District Prosecutors’ Office continued to refuse to file charges following multiple appeals by Chiang’s family to the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ office.
Chiang was acquitted of the rape and murder of a girl in a 2011 posthumous trial after the Control Yuan found he had been tortured by military investigators.
Hung Tzu-yung said Chen should be required to take responsibility, as the Control Yuan found that he interfered in the ruling of the military court, which convicted Chiang and ordered his execution.
Chen was then head of the Air Command, in which Chiang was performing his military service.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator-elect Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said Chiang’s case showed the need to reopen investigations into controversial cases, with the aim of bringing about transitional justice.
“If all we have done since the 228 Incident is face victims without discovering the real perpetrators, can we really say good-bye to the past and move forward?” he said. “We need to turn over chests and cabinets to dig out all the documents and files to discover how these cases unfolded and who should take responsibility.”
The 228 Incident refers to the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) authoritarian regime’s crackdown on a nationwide uprising, which began on Feb. 28, 1947. It is estimated that tens of thousands of Taiwanese were killed in the prelude to nearly four decades of martial law.
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its