Dapu Land Case
The power of eminent domain has been routinely abused in Taiwan for the sake of land speculation. The case of the Dapu Village is the most appalling case of such state-sanctioned robbery. On 9th June 2010, excavators bulldozed and destroyed the Dapu villagers' crop two weeks before harvest in a dawn raid.
On 18th July 2013, hundreds of police officers returned and razed the residents’ homes, while the house owners were away pleading with the central government to stop demolition as the expropriation decision is still contested in court. The thuggish behavior of the police and government triggered spontaneous civil disobedience protests by ordinary citizens across Taiwan. The police responded with undue violence and repression. Many people were detained and prosecuted, and many injured. ...
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They urge me to write to the President on their terms. But I will do no such thing, because stipulation to property rights rather than mere permissions requires that the Land Theft Act be abolished not revised.
ReplyDelete"The initiation of land expropriation must be predicated on the public interest..."
The observance of property rights is the public interest, since the importance of rights is universal. A development that violates somebody's property on any claim of "public interest" is first, a violation of the person and their will - much as rape is. It is similarly immoral to commit gang rape on the authority of "the widest possible consensus".
Second, developments necessarily result in unequal impositions of costs and benefits (with some people - most obviously the property owner getting screwed) and so can only be trumpeted as being in the interests of everyone as implied by the phrase "pubic interest" when these facts are elided or glossed over.
Is not this "rural front" organization merely another front for future DPP politicians? That's what it looks like - trying to rack up political capital for having been seen to oppose State-sanctioned theft whilst actually just calling for more lubricant. Assholes.
No.