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Activists want no
referendum and no nuclear plant
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Anti-nuclear campaigners hold
signs in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday, calling on lawmakers
to stop construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s
Gongliao District and scrap a “loaded” referendum on the plant.
Photo: CNA
During the first day of the new
legislative session yesterday, anti-nuclear power environmentalists again
gathered in front of the Legislative Yuan in Taipei, calling on legislators to
stop the construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao (貢寮), New
Taipei City (新北市), and withdraw the referendum proposal on the plant.
Taiwan Environmental Protection Union founding chairman Shih Hsin-min (施信民) said
the referendum proposal suggested by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator
Lee Ching-hua (李慶華) is aimed at exploiting the “problematic” Referendum Act
(公民投票法), ignoring public opinion and supporting the Cabinet’s will of allowing
the plant to go into operation.
Although Lee last week publicly announced that he wished to withdraw the
proposal, Shih said the proposal has already passed the first reading and is
scheduled for a second reading in this session, so even if Lee claims to want to
withdraw the proposal, he still has to go through procedures to make it
effective.
“Lee should finish going through the procedures as soon as possible. The
Legislative Yuan should acknowledge the public’s wish to bring a halt to the
Fourth Nuclear Power Plant project,” he said, urging the KMT caucus not to block
the proposal withdrawal.
The protesters said President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) approval rating had already
dropped to 9.2 percent and if he does not stop the construction project, it may
even plunge lower.
Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) of the Green Party Taiwan said, ahead of next month’s
National Day, that “we do not have anything to celebrate, because we have so
many nuclear power plants in the nation and Taiwan is the only country that
builds nuclear power plants right next to its capital.”
Pan said the public is invited to join in a “Fourth Nuclear Power Plant
termination” relay walk around the nation, ending at the Presidential Office on
Jan. 1.
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