Ma and his government, however, act as if they have heard nothing of this outpouring of international and domestic concern and are not interested in offering a positive response. The Wild Strawberries student protests and their sit-in are demanding that the government apologize, that the National Security Council secretary-general and the National Police Agency director step down and that the Parade and Assembly Act be amended.
The government refuses to apologize or dismiss any officials and the law will not be amended because the pan-blue camp holds a majority in the legislature. As for the suggestions that an independent commission be set up, the government hasn’t even responded and it is quite obvious that it has no intent to listen to the advice.
As for the concern that the government has selectively investigated pan-green individuals, the justice minister argued it was in the nature of corruption cases that government officials be targeted, since it is only they who have the power and the opportunity to get involved in corruption. Since opposition politicians — as were the KMT during the previous government — do not hold official positions, prosecutors have no reason to investigate them. This kind of reasoning is farcical at best. Certainly those pan-blue politicians who were investigated in connection with the special allowance funds for government chiefs were in government at the time. And how could it be that only Ma was investigated, while all the other pan-blue investigations were shelved, yet almost every single investigated pan-green politician was charged?
It is true that DPP Yunlin County Commissioner Su Chih-fen (蘇治芬), who was illegally detained, is a local government official, but wasn’t it equally true that all those pan-blue county commissioners and mayors charged with violating the law are also local government officials? Why were only the DPP county commissioner detained and held incommunicado, while pan-blue commissioners and mayors can go on with their lives as if nothing had happened? The ministry of justice’s statement was mere sophistry.
The Ma administration claims to abide by the law while it uses national security as a reason to control the judiciary and the police to trample on human rights. Taiwan’s democracy is in danger of collapsing and the shadow of the White Terror is looming dark over our heads.
Only by wielding the banner of human rights and freedom and opposing the government’s systemic violence by taking protests to the streets and bringing accusations to the attention of the international community can we fight back.
This is the only way to safeguard Taiwan’s democracy and save future generations from being trampled under the steel boots of authoritarianism.
TRANSLATED BY PERRY SVENSSON
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