Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

The selective application of law is no law at all

Mei-chin Chen 陳美津

An open letter to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) signed by 34 foreign academics and writers criticizing the government’s timing and motives in accusing 17 former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government officials with having “failed to return” 36,000 documents during the DPP administration provoked a strong reaction from the Ma administration.

Presidential Office spokesperson Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) said on Monday last week that the Republic of China is a country ruled by law and the government had no choice, but to follow that law.

Protestant church worshipers held by Chinese police

Taipei Times

Police in Beijing rounded up dozens of followers of an underground Protestant church yesterday, a rights group said, as a widening crackdown on dissent appeared to spread to religious figures.

Police late on Saturday also detained Jin Tianming (金天明), a senior pastor of Beijing’s Shouwang church, an unregistered Protestant congregation, and other church leaders, before releasing them early yesterday, the US-based China Aid group said.

Jin’s detention came after the church called for an outdoor worship meeting following a similar gathering last Sunday that resulted in police rounding up nearly 170 church followers, most of whom were later released.

Antiquated structure of the KMT on full display

James Wang 王景弘

During his three years in office, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) has shown that he is not suitable to be president and that shamelessness is his greatest skill. Ma’s pet phrases include: “I didn’t know” and “I found out from the newspaper.” He has played the victim on many occasions as a way of diverting attention from what he is up to and to get sympathy, and his use of embedded government advertising to cheat the people of Taiwan is another reason he should have stepped down long ago.

However, this is the president Taiwan has. He not only refuses to step down, he also wants to be re-elected, and nobody in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) dares disagree with him. A few KMT Central Standing Committee members that listen to Ma’s every command have organized an alliance to support him and the revival of Taiwan, while other members are forced to bite their tongues and play second fiddle.

Groups slam Shih Ming-teh for Tsai comments

Taipei Times

More than a dozen gay rights and women’s groups yesterday lashed out at former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) over his questioning of DPP presidential contender Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) sexual orientation and demanded that he apologize to women.

“If, as Shih puts it, the sexual orientation of a presidential candidate is so important that it would have an impact on the direction of national policy, I’d like to ask him to elaborate on which gender or sexual orientation is best fit for a national leader,” Taiwan Women’s Link -secretary-general Tsai Wan-fen ---(蔡宛芬) said at a press conference in Taipei yesterday. “If he cannot explain, he should stop arguing, and apologize to all single women, gays and female politicians.”

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