Taiwan Church News
3384 Edition
January 2 – 8, 2017
Headline News
Citizen Groups Of Taiwan Social Movement Celebrate New Year 2017 On Taipei Streets
Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong
To celebrate out 2016 and welcome in 2017, a social activists’ party was held on the street beside the Legislative Yuan at 9:00 p.m. on 31 December 2016. Under an application by Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, this assembly was co-organized by Dr Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation, National Taiwan University Graduate Student Association, and NTU Student Association.
Many citizen groups of social movements were invited to take part into this party and showcase in booths various concerned social issues, including a strengthening of Taiwan consciousness, the pursuit of a transitional justice in history, land justice, environmental justice, labor rights, college student’s rights, the promotion of fair trade via launching more start-ups of social enterprises, and etc.
Mr Chang Long-chiau, chief executive official of Dr Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation, expressed that the year 2016 was indeed a jubilant year for the Taiwanese that Democratic Progressive Party took back her power, though, the actual performance of the ruling party still failed the people’s expectation. For example, the suspicious money-laundering case of Mega Bank found by New York State Department of Financial Services was still not seen any proper solution submitted by the government, said Chang.
As to the issue of transitional justice, Chang remarked that Taiwan society affirmed DPP’s resolute legislation of the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties and Their Affiliate Organizations in last August, though, an efficient practice and schedule to effectively liquidate all KMT’s ill-gotten assets is still absent from a systematic viewpoint. “We will give the ruling party some time to handle these things for sure, as everybody knows the jobs of reform could not be done over night. But, we do hope DPP to perform better in 2017 and let all the Taiwanese people see there are much more hopes lying ahead!”, Chang expected.
Translated by Peter Wolfe
Many citizen groups of Taiwan social movement celebrate the imminent coming of New Year 2017 on the street beside the Legislative Yuan at 9:00 p.m. on 31 December 2016.
Photos by Chiu Kuo-rong