The Green Party yesterday announced three women as the party’s legislator-at-large candidates — including the nation’s first transgender candidate — focusing on gender and social issues such as drug decriminalization.
At a news conference in Taipei, the party introduced candidates Zoe Lee (李菁琪), a human rights lawyer known for her cannabis decriminalization advocacy; transgender activist and Taiwan Intersex, Transgender and Transexual People Care Association founder Abbygail Wu (吳伊婷); and Kaohsiung Civil Servant Citizen Watch director Lin Li-fen (林莉棻), a gender-equality advocate who has served on school advisory committees.
“We ask voters to support our party’s main values of social justice and equality, green energy and environmental protection, and also sexual and gender diversity. Please choose the Green Party on the political party ballot in January,” said Lee, who also serves as Green Party convener.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Lee is known as Taiwan’s “weed lawyer,” due to her advocacy work.
“My focus is on decriminalization and legal medical use of cannabis. I am not pushing for indiscriminate use of narcotics or for drug abuse. Conversely, it is because of these problems that we need to decriminalize, instead of harsh prosecution and punishment,” she said.
“We should work to remove society’s prejudice in labeling and vilifying cannabis use as a diabolical, repugnant crime,” she said, adding that the public is only fearful of soft drugs like cannabis because it does not fully understand the issues.
“The mindset should be changed, not to apply severe punishments, but to treat people as ‘addicts’ in more suitable ways,” she said. “If a person is addicted to narcotics and we switch to seeing addiction as an illness, then it would be wrong to throw them into prison. They should receive medical treatment.”
“Since society treats cannabis users as criminals and throws them into prison, how come this has had no effect, that incarceration figures have not declined in all these years?” she asked.
Lee said she advocates legalizing cannabis for medical use so patients could receive more suitable and effective treatment, and to prevent people from accessing cannabis from unknown sources.
She said that even morphine is used for treatment in hospital and clinical trials for pain alleviation, even though is is considered an addictive hard drug and listed as a schedule 1 controlled narcotic.
Wu said she accepted the nomination so the public could learn about LGBTQ+ groups, who are facing many issues and barriers in society and everyday life.
“If I can serve as a legislator, I will draft new statues to ensure equality and protect the rights of transgender people,” she said.
“Our society still has much room for improvement, as trans people like me are facing prejudice and challenges in employment, education, medical treatment and other areas,” said Wu, who with her partner become Taiwan’s first legally married transgender couple.
As Taiwan’s electoral system requires that a party receive at least 5 percent of the vote to be granted legislator-at-large seats, it must gain more electorate support in the political party ballot.
In the 2020 legislative election, the Green Party received 341,465 votes, 2.4 percent of the total vote, unable to pass the 5 percent threshold, although the total made it Taiwan’s seventh-largest party.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
RSS