Minister of Culture Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) yesterday announced that a National Human Rights Museum is to be formally founded on May 17 next year in Jingmei Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park (景美人權文化園區) in New Taipei City and the Green Island Human Rights Culture Park on Green Island (綠島).
Cheng made the announcement at an event marking International Human Rights Day at the Taipei Guest House that was attended by President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), human rights campaigner Linda Arrigo and a number of survivors of political persecution and their families.
The nation owes a debt of gratitude to the survivors of political persecution, who three decades ago during the Martial Law era resisted the authoritarian regime and bought the freedom Taiwanese enjoy today with their blood and tears, Cheng said.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Maintaining the country’s democratic way of life requires that people remember their history, she said.
Confronting the country’s history of human rights violations and making restitution is not about fanning political partisanship, but rather a necessary act to reaffirm that human rights are the core value of democratic societies, she said.
The establishment of the National Human Rights Museum “shows that this administration believes the country’s history of political persecution should be confronted at the level of the state,” she said.
“Building a museum in a place of past injustice will help transform a place of historical trauma into a place of human rights education for modern society,” she said.
Tsai in her speech said she hopes the country’s aspirations for transitional justice will become a social moment that brings Taiwanese together and helps them forge a common future.
Social consensus on reconciliation is a prerequisite for transitional justice and the authoritarian remnants of the past must be dealt with through the democratic process, she said.
Tsai also commented on the passage into law of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例), which media reports said required that schools and roads named after Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) be renamed.
“The experience of transitional justice in other countries shows that transitional justice involves the past of the entire country and society,” she said. “It would be a pity if our shared pain is simplified to the issue of changing names.”
Tsai did not elaborate on the issue.
Additional reporting by CNA
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