Taipei City's Zhongzheng First Police District last night revoked the anti-President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) campaign's permit allowing a sit-in on Ketagalan Boulevard between tomorrow and Oct. 28.
The decision came amid a squabble between the Ministry of the Interior and the Taipei City Government over who has legal jurisdiction in the matter.
The anti-Chen campaign obtained a permit for the protest from the Taipei City Government's New Works Bureau.
The other permit granted to the campaign to hold a sit-in in front of the Taipei Railway Station remains in effect and the camp will be allowed to stay there until next Wednesday.
Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (
Lee cited numerous incidents of violence during the protest on Double Ten National Day, as well as Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou's (馬英九) allegedly poor handling of protesters' unlawful behavior, in asking the agency to make the order.
Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) yesterday morning also vowed to take action against rallies aimed at ousting the president, saying the central government would no longer sit idly by and allow mass protests to affect citizens' everyday lives.
Citing the Constitution and the Local Government Law (地方自治法), Ma yesterday shot back at Lee's remarks, insisting that the local police department, instead of the ministry or the NPA, has the authority to decide whether to grant permits for such activities.
"Minister Lee is minding too many businesses. It's the Taipei City Police Department's prerogative to grant or revoke permits for demonstrations. It's not the ministry's business," Ma said yesterday while attending a municipal event in Nankang.
Ma said the Constitution states that the ministry should only monitor local governments and has no right to interfere in their affairs unless administrators are found not to be fulfilling their obligations.
"It seems that the minister doesn't know anything about self-governance in Taiwan," Ma said.
Lee shot back at a ministry press conference later yesterday, saying that it was Ma who was confused and adding that the former lawyer and justice minister had exposed his ignorance of the law by telling the ministry to mind its own business.
"How is it that Ma thinks that the National Policy Agency can't participate in maintaining social order? Of course the central government has a role to play in upholding the law," Lee said.
He called on Ma to "forget his second identity as [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)] chairman" and start serving the interests of Taipei residents.
Lee had on Wednesday accused Ma of allowing his political convictions as KMT chairman to interfere with his duties as mayor.
Ma had a conflict of interest in supporting the anti-Chen protests, which many argue have benefited the KMT, while upholding law and order as mayor of the city in which most of the major anti-Chen protests have occurred, Lee said.
Ma had directed Taipei police for over a month to approve all applications for anti-Chen protests in the city, and this had come at a dire price for Taipei residents who had seen their city paralyzed and racked by violence as a result, Lee said.
In the midst of the dispute between the ministry and the city government, Taipei City Police Department Commissioner Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) said yesterday that he was answerable to Lee, Ma and NPA Director-General Hou Yu-ih (侯友宜), and that he would "figure out the best way of handling the situation" if his superiors gave him conflicting orders.
Ma, however, disagreed.
"He [Wang] has only one boss: me," he said.
Meanwhile, pan-blue lawmakers yesterday voiced opposition to Lee's directive to cancel anti-Chen protests while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers hailed the decision.
KMT caucus whip Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) asked Lee to make efforts to improve public order rather than pander to the president.
DPP caucus whip Ker Chien-ming (
Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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