News

US resolution calls for freedom to navigate Strait

Sunday, 17 July 2011 08:32 Taipei Times

A new resolution calling for continued operations by the US military to support freedom of navigation in the Taiwan Strait has been introduced in the US House of Representatives. It also supports freedom of navigation rights in the South China Sea, the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea.

Sponsored by US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and supported by 18 Republicans and nine Democrats, it calls for a “peaceful and collaborative resolution of maritime territorial disputes in the South China Sea and its environs and other maritime areas adjacent to the East Asian mainland.”

Too little done for victims of White Terror: activists

Friday, 15 July 2011 08:02 Taipei Times

The government has done too little for victims of the White Terror era and Taiwanese tend to forget about what their forebears had to sacrifice for democracy, academics and former political prisoners said yesterday.

The government should establish a task force to explore, collect and manage information on all political cases during the White Terror era, the group said at a press conference announcing the launch of an online database of political prisoners and victims from 1945 to 1987.

The White Terror era began after the 228 Incident, when the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government launched a brutal military crackdown against people protesting the administration of then-executive administrator Chen Yi (陳儀). During the White Terror era, the KMT government killed tens of thousands of suspected dissidents, many intellectuals and members of the social elite.