Sunflower verdict
The Taipei District Court has ruled that the Taipei Police Department should compensate Sunflower movement protesters who occupied the Executive Yuan after using violence when evicting them (“Taipei police aim to appeal redress ruling,” Nov. 1, page 1).
Many are opposed to the ruling, but regardless of whether it is right or wrong, the attitude of those who gave the order to evict the protesters was questionable.
Some say that if you are not prepared to shed some blood when you take to the streets, you had better stay home. Perhaps, but at the time, we reporters were told to leave the building and were not allowed back in to take pictures. After that, the protesters were arrested one after the other, and some of them came out bleeding.
This was done on government instructions. Should they really be allowed to pretend that it did not happen and avoid all responsibility? Is Taiwan a communist state where it is okay to beat people up at will?
Last week, I visited Hong Kong for a follow-up report on the pro-democracy protests there. At any clash between police and protesters, it always fills me with disgust to see an evacuation turn bloody and violent. It can be carried out in an orderly manner, with verbal instructions, and many of the protesters were completely unarmed, but police still attacked them with batons, and used tear gas and pepper spray. Why should a country under the rule of law allow such treatment of protesters demonstrating in accordance with the law?
Perhaps the decision to offer compensation to some of the Sunflower movement protesters is debatable, perhaps not. However, based on what I saw and heard during my reporting at the time, those were the cruelest scenes I have witnessed at any protest in Taiwan. It certainly was not any friendlier than what has been happening in Hong Kong.
Huang Jui-lin
New Taipei City
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