Policing anti-gay protesters
The big demonstrations that took place during the administration of former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), such as the one following the death of army corporal Hung Chung-chiu (洪仲丘), who died of heatstroke following punishment exercises days before his scheduled discharge, had more participants than the demonstration against same-sex marriage that took place outside the Legislative Yuan in Taipei on Thursday.
In the earlier protests, members of both the pan-blue and the pan-green camps behaved calmly and no one attacked the Ministry of National Defense (MND), the legislature or the Executive Yuan. How come people charged the legislature during Thursday’s demonstration, which was said to have no more than 20,000 participants?
During Thursday’s demonstration against amending the law to allow same-sex marriage, I was with the reporters in the media area in front of the stage.
People constantly shouted: “Down with [President] Tsai [Ing-wen (蔡英文)].” Things were not really right. At about 11am, Minister of Justice Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) addressed the legislature, and after the legislative proceedings had been broadcast from the stage, people close to me became louder and louder, saying this such as: “I cannot listen to this anymore, let’s charge the legislature.” Fortunately, no one took any action. We will never know if these were the same people that were behind the charge when it finally did take place.
In the following talks between the party caucuses of the ruling and opposition parties, it was decided that public hearings should be organized, and some of my colleagues complained that: “They held public hearings before. Why didn’t they attend those hearings instead of asking for more public hearings to be held now?”
It really sounds as if there is something fishy about the upcoming hearings.
All these complex and confusing developments will only result in public hearings that will be surrounded by disturbances, attempts to create further division between the pan-green and pan-blue camps and calls for Tsai to step down.
That a simple legal amendment to allow equal marriage rights should become so complicated, implies that Tsai’s administration should not only be very cautious of disturbances, it would probably also be wise of them to increase the police presence in order to prevent people with ulterior motives from stirring up trouble.
Huang Jui-lin
Taipei
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