David on Formosa

I reviewed Tears (眼淚) last year after I saw it at the Golden Horse Film Festival. The movie is officially released in Taiwan today. The movie tells the story of Guo, an old policeman who employs some unethical policing methods and eventually has to face up to his past.
The movie is being widely discussed in [...]

The High Court yesterday passed down a not guilty verdict to three men from the Atayal village of Smangus. The verdict follows the Supreme Court decision in December last year that sent the case back to the High Court for another hearing.
The case concerned the use of wood from a tree that fell over on [...]

Taiwan has maintained its status as free in Freedom House’s 2010 report released yesterday. Taiwan received the same score as last year but its score for civil liberties decreased from 1 to 2 while its score for political rights increased from 2 to 1. Taiwan’s score put it equal with Japan and South Korea in [...]

The Supreme Court last month ruled on the Smangus Beech Tree case sending the case back to the High Court for a reexamination. The news seems to have been almost ignored by Taiwan’s media, but Taiwan Indigenous Television provided some good reporting. In addition to embedding a video of the English news report from TITV [...]

More than a thousand workers from Southeast Asia marched through the streets of Taipei today. The march had the slogan “Still no day off” (還沒休假), calling on the Council of Labor Affairs (CLA) to ensure that workers have one day off per week. Taiwan has more than 300,000 migrant workers from Southeast Asia.

I went to Kaohsiung (高雄) over the weekend. The sunny skies and warm temperatures were a nice contrast to Taipei of late. As well as enjoying the weather I was keen to see two sites of artistic and architectural significance that weren’t open to the public when I visited last year. My first stop was [...]

“There is a new dynamic at work. The worldwide movement to abolish the death penalty is now irresistible,” said Roger Hood in a public talk last night in Taipei. Hood is a Professor Emeritus of criminology at Oxford University and a former consultant to the United Nations on the death penalty.
Hood laid out clear evidence [...]

The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (台灣民主基金會) announced yesterday that the 2009 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award will be awarded to Mr. Kim Seong-Min, founder and director of Free North Korea Radio. The award recognizes his courageous defiance of the North Korean regime and will support his ongoing work in providing an independent source of [...]