The Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) has a way of inspiring defiance. When scores of academics and activists stepped forward on Monday to confess to violating the act, it was the latest gesture in what is rapidly becoming a tradition of targeting this legislation with civil disobedience.
Where the law or the actions of authorities run counter to civil and political rights, civil disobedience has a clear role to play, and in this case the strategy is admirable. Peaceful violations of the assembly law have repeatedly highlighted its senselessness.
Activists now have help from unexpected quarters. The indictment of two people under the Act drives home their point: It restricts peaceful expression of dissent and violates the Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights recently passed by the legislature and signed by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
If anyone thought the Act’s sanctions would be discarded in practice, the indictments were a wake-up call that make repealing the law more urgent.
That was the message of the more than 120 people who symbolically “surrendered” to prosecutors on Monday in a show of support for National Taiwan University sociology professor Lee Ming-tsung (李明璁) and Taiwan Association for Human Rights chairman Lin Chia-fan (林佳範), who have been charged with organizing demonstrations without permits.
When the Wild Strawberry Student Movement announced it would mobilize around 1,000 people last December to protest without a permit in front of the Presidential Office, it was unclear how the authorities would react. The event was intended as a challenge to the assembly law and organizers gave a week’s notice. The rally was peaceful and the organizers, who made no attempt to hide their identities, and participants did not face sanctions.
Yet, six months later, Lee was indicted over a separate Wild Strawberry protest held one month earlier during the visit to Taiwan by Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林). Lin, meanwhile, was charged with helping organize a demonstration without a permit in front of the legislature.
Another show of defiance was organized by the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on May 17, when it staged a 24-hour sit-in to protest the assembly law. Amid vague warnings from the Taipei City Government, the DPP, like the Wild Strawberries, warned the authorities in turn that it would not seek a permit for its demonstration.
For months, the debate around the assembly law has focused on a Cabinet-proposed amendment stalled in the legislature. Judicial reform advocates say the proposal, which the Executive Yuan claims would bring the law into line with human rights standards, is at best a show and at worst reinforces restrictions on freedom of assembly. With the support of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus, the amendment is expected to pass, despite the delay.
But now the focus is squarely on prosecutors. Are more indictments in the works, or can they proceed with the selective indictment of Lee and Lin without a serious backlash and further discrediting of the judiciary?
Either way, their actions will demonstrate the need to overhaul, if not scrap, a disgraceful law.
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