After the legislature on Wednesday decided to initiate the first review of the draft pension reform act, groups opposing the reform proposals began a violent protest outside the legislature. They even assaulted county commissioners, mayors and legislators entering the building and some of the protesters wondered what was wrong with that, saying: “If the Sunflower movement protesters could do it, why can’t we?”
In a play on words alluding to the Sunflower movement, these protesters are now being called the “No-money-to-spend movement.”
The guiding principle for the movement opposing pension reforms is to protect their own vested interests, while the Sunflower movement was fighting for a loftier reason — the public interest against the opaque handling of cross-strait service trade agreement negotiations.
There is no comparing the two, so the discussion should stick to whether the anti-reform protesters’ violent behavior is in line with a court decision that civil disobedience could offset illegal behavior.
The key factor that caused the Taipei District Court to arrive at a not-guilty verdict in the case against Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and the other Sunflower movement protesters for occupying the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan was that they met seven requirements of civil disobedience which offset any legal violations.
Applying these seven factors to the behavior of the anti-reform protesters who assaulted legislators and other officials makes it clear that they do not meet the requirements.
So, legally speaking, they cannot refer to the Sunflower movement verdict.
The fourth of the seven conditions for civil disobedience requires “open and non-violent behavior,” meaning that then-premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) could freely visit the legislature and engage in dialogue with the protesters without being assaulted by the Sunflower students in the way that officials and legislators were beaten by the anti-reform protesters.
The court’s sixth condition for civil disobedience was that there must be “an element of necessity, in that there must be no other legally effective methods available.”
The Sunflower movement was a protest against the cross-strait service trade agreement, and had the agreement been passed, there would be no more legal recourse for the students to address the situation, which was the reason why the court came to the conclusion that the protest met the necessity requirement.
If the pension reform bill is passed, on the other hand, the protesters would still have other avenues for addressing the situation — they could file an administrative appeal and even turn to the Council of Grand Justices for a constitutional interpretation of the decision.
The protesters against pension reforms abandoned seeking redress through legal channels and instead decided to beat up legislators and officials. This is not only an ugly way of defending their vested interests, but it also lags far behind the moral vantage point of the Sunflower movement.
From a legal point of view, the protesters against reform do not meet the requirements for civil disobedience, and they are fundamentally unworthy of comparison with the Sunflower movement.
Huang Di-ying is a lawyer and deputy director-general of the Taiwan Forever Association.
Translated by Perry Svensson
The US Senate’s passage of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which urges Taiwan’s inclusion in the Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) exercise and allocates US$1 billion in military aid, marks yet another milestone in Washington’s growing support for Taipei. On paper, it reflects the steadiness of US commitment, but beneath this show of solidarity lies contradiction. While the US Congress builds a stable, bipartisan architecture of deterrence, US President Donald Trump repeatedly undercuts it through erratic decisions and transactional diplomacy. This dissonance not only weakens the US’ credibility abroad — it also fractures public trust within Taiwan. For decades,
In 1976, the Gang of Four was ousted. The Gang of Four was a leftist political group comprising Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members: Jiang Qing (江青), its leading figure and Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) last wife; Zhang Chunqiao (張春橋); Yao Wenyuan (姚文元); and Wang Hongwen (王洪文). The four wielded supreme power during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), but when Mao died, they were overthrown and charged with crimes against China in what was in essence a political coup of the right against the left. The same type of thing might be happening again as the CCP has expelled nine top generals. Rather than a
The ceasefire in the Middle East is a rare cause for celebration in that war-torn region. Hamas has released all of the living hostages it captured on Oct. 7, 2023, regular combat operations have ceased, and Israel has drawn closer to its Arab neighbors. Israel, with crucial support from the United States, has achieved all of this despite concerted efforts from the forces of darkness to prevent it. Hamas, of course, is a longtime client of Iran, which in turn is a client of China. Two years ago, when Hamas invaded Israel — killing 1,200, kidnapping 251, and brutalizing countless others
A Reuters report published this week highlighted the struggles of migrant mothers in Taiwan through the story of Marian Duhapa, a Filipina forced to leave her infant behind to work in Taiwan and support her family. After becoming pregnant in Taiwan last year, Duhapa lost her job and lived in a shelter before giving birth and taking her daughter back to the Philippines. She then returned to Taiwan for a second time on her own to find work. Duhapa’s sacrifice is one of countless examples among the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers who sustain many of Taiwan’s households and factories,
RSS