Taichung prosecutors are investigating the case of a seven-year-old boy who is in a deep coma after his judo instructor allegedly threw him to the ground 27 times during training on Wednesday.
The instructor, surnamed Ho (何), was initially released without bail yesterday, after prosecutors questioned him and reviewed video footage, they said.
The boy’s father, surnamed Huang (黃), decried the decision, saying that Ho should be detained because he “deliberately killed a helpless child.”
Later last night, Ho was detained after prosecutors conducted another round of questioning.
Footage from the judo gym shows Ho and others repeatedly performing a shoulder throw on the boy, despite him being unable to stand and begging them to stop.
Prosecutors cited Ho as saying that “it was a normal judo lesson. We did not use inappropriate force and had no idea that he sustained grave injuries.”
A doctor at a hospital to which the boy was admitted on Friday said that he was unconscious upon arrival, and had seizures.
The boy also had cerebral hemorrhaging, which made emergency surgery necessary, the doctor said, adding that he is in intensive care and has unstable vital signs.
He is in a near brain-dead condition, the doctor said.
The boy’s parents have requested charges against Ho for negligence resulting in injuries, prosecutors said.
The Chinese Taipei Judo Federation, the sport’s national governing body, said that Ho does not have a license issued by the federation or any other qualification to teach judo.
It said that the footage showed Ho engaging in exercises that are “definitely … not the way to teach children.”
The federation has regulations concerning the use of force to the neck and head of children “to ensure safety and protect the trainees,” it said, urging parents to only send their children to gyms that follow the regulations and have qualified staff.
The federation has been accused of not doing enough to ensure the quality of judo training and was criticized that it took two days for it to respond to the incident.
The federation said it would increase inspections at gyms, and offer better and more selective training programs for instructors.
The instructor has allegedly been teaching children for 10 years.
This story has been updated since it was first published.
Without completed infrastructure and training, the expedited sale of new F-16s from the US could become a burden rather than a help, a military official said yesterday. Reuters on Thursday last week reported that Washington is looking to accelerate the delivery of 66 new F-16C/D Block 70 aircraft in response to what it sees as increasing intimidation by Beijing. Under the terms of the original US$8 billion deal signed in 2019, the US is expected to deliver a single-seater and double-seater for testing next year, then deliver the 66 new aircraft in batches of four or five from 2024 to 2026. The officials
SLIGHTS: Beijing intends to display pro-unification messages and prominently feature Taiwanese volunteers in its propaganda videos, an official said Taiwanese officials are poised to boycott next month’s Beijing Winter Olympics, an official with knowledge of the matter said yesterday, citing concerns that China would slight Taiwan during the Games. This year’s Winter Olympics are scheduled to open on Friday next week amid a diplomatic boycott by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Lithuania, New Zealand, the UK and the US in response to China’s human rights abuses against Uighurs in Xinjiang and crackdowns on democracy advocates in Hong Kong. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said that a Cabinet-appointed task force has determined that Taiwan’s delegation would abstain from the opening and
INCREASED COOPERATION: Part of the funding is to be used to further the aims of a Taiwan-US human resources development platform launched in 2015, a source said An increase of ￥100 million (US$878,765) to Japan’s annual foreign affairs budget is for “advancing the Japan-Taiwan relationship,” information published on the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Web site showed. The ministry’s budget for last year was ￥1.7 billion; it was increased to ￥1.8 billion for this year. The ministry wrote that the additional funding was to be used for “cooperating with allies and like-minded countries to safeguard the universal values of the international community.” Regarding Taiwan specifically, the ministry said that it was “responding to an increasingly complex security and economic environment,” and that it aimed to “strengthen diplomacy and cooperation
A majority of Japanese feel friendly toward Taiwan, with almost half of respondents in a poll saying that they want to visit the country after COVID-19 travel curbs are eased, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in Japan said yesterday. The office said that 75.9 percent of respondents said they feel friendly toward Taiwan, citing as reasons the friendliness and politeness of Taiwanese, the long history of ties between the two nations, and the strength of bilateral trade. More than one-quarter of respondents — 26.4 percent — said they had traveled to Taiwan, while 47.8 percent said they would like to
RSS