Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

Ma returning nation to Martial Law era: academics

Taipei Times

The nation is on a dangerous path toward a return to authoritarian rule given the precipitous erosion of freedom and personal rights under the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government led by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), academics and civil liberty groups said on Tuesday.

Taiwan Association for Human Rights (TAHR) chairman Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said there are more crackdowns and violence by the state apparatus against civilians these days, a clear indication that democracy and human rights protections are sliding backward.

Mao seems to have had last laugh on Chiang

Taipei Times

Chinese history leading up to and immediately after World War II was the story of the Republic of China (ROC) under Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — which was to rule the later People’s Republic of China (PRC) — under Mao Zedong (毛澤東).

The KMT and CCP were separate entities, albeit organized along similar lines, both being structured on the Leninist party model. The regimes they control continue their shared history even today, 65 years later, the one ghosting the other.

Students bid to remove Chiang Kai-shek statues

Taipei Times

Students stand in front of a statue of Chiang Kai-shek at Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School on Monday, holding signs calling for the statue and all others like it to be removed from campuses nationwide.
Photo taken from YouTube

A group of high-school students from across the nation has launched a campaign advocating the removal of statues of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from all campuses natiownide, announcing their initiative through a video released on Monday.

Taipei Chenggong High School (成功高中) started filming the clip and was later joined by various high schools, including Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School (建國中學), Taipei First Girls’ High School (北一女中), the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University (師大附中), National Tainan Girls’ Senior High School (台南女中) and St Ignatius High School (徐匯中學).

Taiwan and Hong Kong on similar pathways

Lin Thung-hong 林宗弘

A storm has been brewing in Hong Kong over the past month or so. First, 180,000 people took part in the biggest-ever candlelit commemoration of the June 4, 1989, crackdown on China’s democracy movement.

Then, on June 6, opponents of a plan to build two new towns in the northeastern New Territories briefly occupied the Legislative Council lobby.

Toward the end of last month, 780,000 people voted in an unofficial referendum initiated by supporters of the pressure group Occupy Central with Love and Peace, about how citizens should be able to nominate candidates for Hong Kong’s chief executive.

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