Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilors yesterday released 53 photos they said showed police using force against protesters during demonstrations against a Chinese envoy’s visit to Taipei earlier this month.
The councilors vowed to continue investigating the actions of the police force during the protests.
One week after the Taipei City Police Department issued a booklet containing 66 photos of “violent protesters” during various demonstrations against Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林), the DPP councilors responded by releasing 53 “violent policemen” photographs.
Taipei City councilors Chou Wei-you (周威佑) and Chien Yu-yen (簡余晏) called on the public to help identify the police officers in the pictures, published on Chien’s Web site, www.yuyen.tw.
“President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration defined the demonstrations as violent incidents initiated by the protesters. But what was worse was the abuse of administrative power and that these police officers will not be punished,” Chou and Chien said in a statement released at a press conference at the Taipei City Council.
Chou, who previously accused a police officer of hitting him on the left eye while he was protesting against Chen in front of a hotel in the city, accused the Ma administration of using force against its own people to protect Chinese officials.
Chien said the publication of the photos was not meant to single out police officers, as most of them were just following orders from either the National Police Agency (NPA) or the National Security Bureau.
“We will find out who gave the order for the police to attack innocent civilians and confiscate the national flag” from those carrying it during the protests, she added.
Among the photographs released by the city councilors were shots of the police officer accused of hitting Chou, as well as Beitou Precinct Chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿), who was in charge when police closed the Sunrise Records store after part of the crowd protesting Chen’s visit started dancing on the sidewalk in front of the store.
Although the NPA gave Lee an oral reprimand for his handling of matters in the aftermath of the incident, he was promoted to Shihlin Precinct chief on Tuesday.
Chien said the Ma administration had failed to adequately explain police violence and said the DPP’s Taipei City Council caucus would not give up until the matter had been settled.
Chou and Chien urged victims of police violence to contact the councilors’ offices.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS