Members of two civic groups yesterday condemned the rejection of their appeal to return land expropriated duraing the Dapu Incident to the original owners, promising to continue their fight in court and calling on the incoming administration of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to put pressure on the Miaoli County Government.
About 30 members of the Miaoli Youth Alliance and Taiwan Rural Front came together with residents of Miaoli County’s Dapu Borough (大埔) to protest the decision, which turned down the residents’ appeal to have the land returned to them after its expropriation was ruled illegal.
“The court has already ruled against the government and logically this would mean that the ‘status quo’ should be restored — why can the courts not side with vulnerable and underprivileged people?” Taiwan Rural Front chairman Hsu Shih-jung (徐世榮) said.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“The Taichung High Administrative Court has used a procedural question to avoid the logic on which it should have issued a ruling,” said Thomas Chan (詹順貴), an attorney and rights campaigner who represents the landowners free of charge.
He said the court violated precedent by ruling that the Miaoli County Government was only a participant in the civic groups’ original lawsuit against the Ministry of the Interior and was therefore not subject to a direct ruling.
In 2013, the ministry approved the Miaoli County Government’s expropriation of farmland in the county’s Jhunan Township (竹南) to expand the Hsinchu Science Park, leading to the forcible demolition of four family houses in Dapu.
Chan said that civic groups at the time had no choice but to file a lawsuit against the ministry over the expropriation, adding that the groups would appeal the court’s decision while continuing to pursue a separate lawsuit against the Miaoli County Government seeking monetary compensation.
The groups also called on Tsai’s incoming administration to put pressure on the Miaoli County Government to return the land to spare the landowners the trouble of a drawn-out legal process.
“We hope that after Tsai takes office she can resolve the issue, otherwise it would be extremely difficult for us to keep going,” said Peng Hsiu-chun (彭秀春), widow of Chang Sen-wen (張森文), who committed suicide shortly after his pharmacy was torn down during the demolition.
Youth Alliance for Miaoli member Chen Kuan-yu (陳冠宇) called for Tsai to find a “political” solution, while criticizing the court’s decision, saying it “opened the door” for further arbitrary expropriations.
“The court has used procedural reasoning to violate the rights of residents,” he said. “In the future, the county government will be able to forcibly expropriate your land and tear down your house and then present you with a fait accompli — telling you there is no way to restore the ‘status quo.’”
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash