Police are tasked with enforcing the law, and are supposed to act according to the law while doing so — yet the police in Taiwan often seem to act otherwise, especially when dealing with demonstrators.
After attempting to attend the Yuen Foong Yu Group’s (YFY) annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei, Lee Sang-aun, a South Korean worker laid off by the group’s subsidiary in South Korea, was stopped by police guarding the meeting room and later arrested and charged with violating the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), even though he had the proper documents to attend the meeting.
The police immediately referred Lee to the National Immigration Agency (NIA), which prepared to deport him. However, Lee’s supporters quickly appealed the case, and the Taipei District Court acquitted on the grounds that his request to attend the meeting had been legal and that his arrest was illegal.
Prior to Lee’s arrest, eight other South Korean workers who were laid off and came to Taiwan with him were deported last week for staging a hunger strike outside YFY chairman Ho Shou-chuan’s (何壽川) private residence.
The police also accused those demonstrators of violating the Social Order Maintenance Act, while the NIA accused them of having threatened social stability and public security in the nation — because of a quiet sit-in protest.
This is not the first case in which police arrests of — and action against — demonstrators has been deemed illegal.
For example, there was the case of a group of protesters who questioned the police’s handling of their demonstration and were denied an appeal when they cited the Police Power Exercise Act (警察職權行使法). The police commander on the scene said that he was acting in accordance with the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) and not the Police Power Exercise Act (警察職權行使法) — even though officers are required to abide by this law when on duty.
It is not only demonstrators who police treat inappropriately. While the police say that they strive to defend the freedom of the press, they often interfere with media during demonstrations.
It has often happened during demonstrations that the police ask members of the media to leave the scene when they are preparing to disperse demonstrators — sometimes claiming it is to protect the reporters, while sometimes threatening to charge reporters with “obstructing official business.”
Whatever the excuse might be, if reporters insist on staying, police still try to push them away while repeatedly murmuring “please cooperate.”
Police often apologize and promise to reform when later told that what they did was illegal, but they do the same thing the next time.
Police often complain that they are not getting the respect they deserve, but if police officers do not respect themselves and do not uphold the values that they are supposed to defend, how can the public respect them?
Certainly, there are many good officers, but as long as there are bad officers, people will not remember the good ones, and therefore the good officers should be brave enough to correct their colleagues.
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