President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday met proponents of instituting a White Terror memorial day in a show of support, saying that officials would be instructed to consider implementing their proposal.
She made the comment in a speech marking the event at the Presidential Office in Taipei.
A petition for creating a day to commemorate Taiwan’s White Terror era, which occurred from 1949 to 1987, garnered 520 signatures.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office
The proposed memorial day would occur on May 19, the date martial law was declared by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government.
The president thanked former political prisoners Tsai Kuan-yu (蔡寬裕), Chen Lieh (陳列) and Lu Yu (呂昱) for leading the nation’s democracy movement and their attendance at the event.
She additionally commended Chen for penning the Book of Wreckage (殘骸書), a memoir detailing the Martial Law period that won the Annual Golden Grand Laurel Award in last year’s Taiwan Literature Awards.
The 228 Incident and the subsequent declaration of martial law had a profound effect on the development of democracy and their lessons should be remembered, Tsai Ing-wen said, adding that future generations must not forget they carry the legacy of those who fought for democracy.
Relevant government departments would be ordered to evaluate the proposed creation of a White Terror day of remembrance in collaboration with the holiday’s proponents, she said.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), Minister of the Interior Lin Yu-chang (林右昌), National Human Rights Commission Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊) and New Taiwan Peace Foundation chairwoman Michelle Wang (王美琇) were among the officials and advocates at the event.
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