Leper colony to stage dramatic protest at WHO's HQ

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Leper colony to stage dramatic protest at WHO's HQ

By Wang Hsiao-wen
STAFF WRITER

Disillusioned by fruitless negotiations with government agencies, Taiwan's elderly lepers will take their case to the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva tomorrow, adding fresh momentum to their decade-long protest against the government's plan to force over 300 lepers into a high-rise hospital.

Two lepers and several graduate students from a grassroots organization called Taiwan Youth Union for Lepers' Rights yesterday held a placard reading "Rage against Taiwan's leprosy killer policy," and sang a satirical song titled "Taiwanese Miracle" to rail at the government in front of the Department of Health.

"While our government drums up our bid for WHO under the name of human rights in the international community, some officials are actually trampling on the rights of a disadvantaged minority here," said Yang You-ren (�k�F�m), a volunteer at Taiwan Youth Union for Lepers' Rights and doctoral candidate at National Taiwan University's Graduate Institute of Building and Planning.

The dispute flared up in 2003, when Taipei County officials began demolishing the 70-year-old Happy Life Sanatorium (�ِ��×{�@), built under Japanese colonial rule, to make room for the Taipei mass rapid transit (MRT) system's Sinjhuang line.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/05/14/2003254622

[Decay]

1. Geez!

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