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Home The News News Former DPP chairman goes on a hunger strike

Former DPP chairman goes on a hunger strike


Former Democratic Progressive Party chairperson Hsu Hsin-liang, who has gone on a hunger strike over President Ma Ying-jeou’s policies, sits in the lotus position at the gate of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Monday.
Photo: Lin Cheng-kung, Taipei Times

Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) yesterday finished the first day of his hunger strike in front of the legislature after receiving no response from President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to three demands he made on Sunday.

The 70-year-old Hsu said he would not back down until Ma concedes.

After beginning a sit-in on Sunday afternoon, Hsu gave Ma 24 hours to respond affirmatively on three issues — freezing fuel and electricity prices, retaining the ban on beef imports containing residues of the feed-additive ractopamine and giving a presidential pardon to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who is serving a 17-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption.

Hsu vowed to stage an indefinite hunger strike if Ma failed to give “positive responses.”

Presidential spokesperson Fang Chiang Tai-chi (范姜泰基) said on Sunday night that Ma “had already made necessary adjustments to his policies” and urged Hsu to take care of his health.

Yesterday afternoon, Hsu said he still hoped Ma would agree to all three demands, adding that he would find it acceptable “if Ma offered concessions and agreed to negotiate the three issues with the DPP.”

On the issue of a presidential pardon, Hsu said it was an exclusive constitutional right of the president and a “higher power” than the judiciary.

“There is no such thing as interference with the judiciary, because it [a presidential pardon] is made out of political deliberation rather than legal consideration, with the president making his own judgement on the basis of the national interest,” Hsu said.

Hsu is one of five candidates for this weekend’s Democratic Progressive Party chairmanship election.

Source: Taipei Times - 2012/05/23



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Newsflash

Legislators and academics yesterday warned that signing an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China could potentially undermine Taiwan’s food security because the nation’s food self-sufficiency rate is alarmingly low, about 30 percent, and Chinese suppliers of agricultural products would be able to influence Taiwan’s food markets.

They said unless efforts are made to improve the nation’s food self-sufficiency, the trade pact the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government is seeking to sign with Beijing next month would mean China would gain significant control over wheat and corn imports and prices of wheat-derived foodstuffs, animal feed and meat products, putting Taiwan’s food security at risk.