Taiwan continues to see unrest brewing after the 24 days of tension that began with the Sunflower movement’s occupation of the legislative chamber on March 18.
On Friday, about 1,000 people gathered until midnight outside Taipei’s Zhongzheng First Police Precinct, calling on Precinct Police Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) to resign.
One of several events that triggered the impromptu protest was Taiwan Referendum Alliance convener Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) running into traffic early on Friday morning to protest against the use of force by police on him and his colleagues as they continued to camp outside the legislative compound after the students left on Thursday night.
The group of mainly elderly protesters led by the 65-year-old Tsay, a civil engineering professor at National Taiwan University (NTU), has staged a sit-in outside the legislature for more than five years to raise public awareness of flaws in the referendum system and demarcation of constituencies.
Their appeals and their contribution have gone largely unnoticed in the media and are a poignant highlighting of the deficiencies of the nation’s democracy. They lent quiet support to the Sunflower student movement, for example by paying the Taipei City Government NT$30,000 a day for the right to assemble during the 24-day occupation period.
The forcible removal came after the Taipei City Police Department announced on Wednesday that the permit granted to the alliance on March 19 that allowed it to use the site until Saturday next week had been revoked and the group was blacklisted from organizing a rally for good.
Anger was also fueled by the statement made by Fang earlier that day at the Taipei City Council that he would follow through on these decisions even though the measures violate the public’s constitutional rights to assemble.
The actions to silence dissidents run counter to Taiwan’s democratic development, while the way the police handled the protest’s aftermath further rolled back democracy. However, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) have both wasted no time in praising the police.
National Policy Agency Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) on Thursday rejected the requests made by the legislature’s special committee to investigate the crackdown on the student movement at the Executive Yuan and the video recording of the meeting, which was supposed to be retrievable as video-on-demand online, was missing.
Later in the day the police cordoned off the legislative chamber as if it were a crime scene after the students departed, to collect and preserve evidence, including fingerprints, and some police officers pointed video cameras at students when they walked out of the room, in an apparent attempt to prepare legal action against the protesters.
Another major demonstration against the police occurred in March 1949, sparked by an officer stopping a pair of students from NTU and the Taipei Teachers’ College — now National Taiwan Normal University — for riding two to a bicycle, leading to mass arrests of students on April 6, known as the “April 6 Incident (四六事件),” which triggered the largest student movement before the Martial Law era.
Then-NTU president Fu Si-nian (傅斯年) is remembered for what he said to Peng Meng-chi (彭孟緝), who headed the Taiwan Garrison Command at the time: “I have only one request. There must not be blood spilled when you disperse the students tonight. If a single student bleeds, I’m coming after you.”
In the remaining two years of Ma’s presidency, it is his administration’s reaction to further protests that will determine his legacy.
This editorial has been corrected since it was first published.
A series of strong earthquakes in Hualien County not only caused severe damage in Taiwan, but also revealed that China’s power has permeated everywhere. A Taiwanese woman posted on the Internet that she found clips of the earthquake — which were recorded by the security camera in her home — on the Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu. It is spine-chilling that the problem might be because the security camera was manufactured in China. China has widely collected information, infringed upon public privacy and raised information security threats through various social media platforms, as well as telecommunication and security equipment. Several former TikTok employees revealed
For the incoming Administration of President-elect William Lai (賴清德), successfully deterring a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack or invasion of democratic Taiwan over his four-year term would be a clear victory. But it could also be a curse, because during those four years the CCP’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) will grow far stronger. As such, increased vigilance in Washington and Taipei will be needed to ensure that already multiplying CCP threat trends don’t overwhelm Taiwan, the United States, and their democratic allies. One CCP attempt to overwhelm was announced on April 19, 2024, namely that the PLA had erred in combining major missions
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday last week held a debate over the constitutionality of the death penalty. The issue of the retention or abolition of the death penalty often involves the conceptual aspects of social values and even religious philosophies. As it is written in The Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, the government’s policy is often a choice between the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods, and it is impossible to be perfect. Today’s controversy over the retention or abolition of the death penalty can be viewed in the same way. UNACCEPTABLE Viewing the
At the same time as more than 30 military aircraft were detected near Taiwan — one of the highest daily incursions this year — with some flying as close as 37 nautical miles (69kms) from the northern city of Keelung, China announced a limited and selected relaxation of restrictions on Taiwanese agricultural exports and tourism, upon receiving a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) delegation led by KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崑萁). This demonstrates the two-faced gimmick of China’s “united front” strategy. Despite the strongest earthquake to hit the nation in 25 years striking Hualien on April 3, which caused