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Indie-music scene mobilizes with concert to protest land grab

Protesters scuffle with police outside Premier Su Tseng-chang's residence on Sunday. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Politicians aren't listening and the police have used bizarre tactics to disrupt their protests, so activists fighting to save Losheng Sanatorium are cranking up the volume with four days of rock concerts to raise awareness for their cause.

More than 30 indie acts — including punk group 88 Guava Seeds (八 十 八顆芭樂籽), Hakka folk combo Hohak Band (好客樂隊), post-rock band Orange Grass (橙草) and underground collective KbN — are scheduled to perform at the Ideal Art Festival (理想藝術節), which runs this and next weekend near Fujen Catholic University (輔仁大學) in Sinjhuang Township (新莊), Taipei County.

The goal: save the Losheng — or Happy Life (樂生療養院) — leprosarium, a hospital and home for lepers recently designated a temporary historic site. Taipei City's Department of Rapid Transit Systems (TRTC) wants to demolish the complex to make room for an MRT station. Advocates say the move would destroy an important piece of local history and disrupt the lives of Losheng's elderly residents.

Performance notes: What: Ideal Art Festival, a series of concerts and other events organized to protest the planned demolition of Losheng Sanatorium Where: Losheng Sanatorium (樂生療養院), at 794 Jhongjheng Rd, Sinjhuang Township, Taipei County (台北縣新莊市中正路794號) When: Tomorrow, Sunday, March 24 and March 25, from 2pm to 8pm On the Web: losheng-paradise.blogspot.com How to get there from Taipei: By public transportation: Take the MRT to Ximen Station and get out at Exit No. 6. On Chengdu Road (成都路) take the No. 635 bus (635號公車) and get off at the Losheng Sanatorium stop (樂生療養院站) By motorbike or car: Traveling on Zhonghua Road (中華路), cross the Zhongxing Bridge (中興橋), continue straight and cross the Chongxin Bridge (重新橋), keep going straight along Jhongjheng Rd (中正路), pass Fujen Catholic University (輔仁大學), and travel for another two kilometers to the sanatorium

Festival planner Zoe Yu (游佩勳) said the concert would also call attention to "rude" methods employed by police to disperse previous protests. Officers blocked a group of 100 students and wheelchair-bound residents on Sunday from presenting a petition at the home of Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌). Police hauled some of the students off in a van and abandoned them in the mountains near Neihu, Yu said.

"We have to be clear about our human rights and we want the government to recognize the people's rights. You can't just take someone's home and treat the patients the way the government has been treating them," Yu said.

Built in 1930 during Japanese colonial rule, Longsheng is the only public leprosarium in Taiwan and has housed more than 300 patients, most of whom were forced to leave their families in their teens and are now in their 60s and 70s. Following a policy originally instituted by the Japanese, people with leprosy, or Hansen's disease, were segregated by law until the 1980s, and Losheng became a self-sufficient community.

In 1994, Taipei County sold the land on which the sanatorium stood to the TRTC for the construction of part of the Sinjhuang MRT line. Residents were not consulted and did not learn of the sale until nearly a decade later, when demolition work started.

Residents and human-rights groups have campaigned to save the leprosarium since 2004, petitioning official agencies such as the Taipei County Government, the Executive Yuan and the Council for Cultural Affairs.

In November 2005, the Council of Cultural Affairs designated Losheng a "temporary historic site," giving Taipei County six months to review the complex's historical value. The county allowed the six months to pass without conducting the review — deliberately, activists say — passing responsibility over the decision back to the central government.

Experts say the MRT's power and water treatment plants could be moved to allow for the co-existence of the sanatorium and the MRT line. But the TRTC estimates rerouting the MRT could cost more than NT$2 billion (US$63 million) and delay the project by more than three years. Politicians including Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) have spoken in favor of the demolition.

If they lose their battle to save their home, Losheng residents will be relocated to the newly built Huilung Community Hospital.

The Ideal Art Festival is organized by the Youth Losheng League, Internet culture portal CampoLive (campolive.blogspot.com), the FAM Music and Art Alliance (FAM音樂藝術聯盟, www.twfam.com) and Shibishou (詩筆獸), the group of artists and musicians who organized last month's Freak Out Beast (吵年獸) music festival. In addition to the concerts, there will be poetry readings and an outdoor market.

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