Responding to questions about an e-mail from the Ministry of Education which expressed “concern” about student protesters last week, Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) yesterday promised to ask universities not to pursue investigations into student protesters and advised them to reconsider regulations that call for punishments for students who participate in social movements.
Students held two protests about media monopolization last week — at the Executive Yuan from Monday evening to Tuesday morning, and at the Fair Trade Commission and Legislative Yuan on Thursday.
Legislators revealed on Friday that universities received an e-mail from the ministry on Thursday afternoon, asking them to “show concern” about and investigate the protesting students.
The e-mail, sent by the ministry’s Student Affairs Committee, alarmed many, who saw it as authoritarian.
At the legislature yesterday, Chiang said he had several times expressed his concern for students protesting in bad weather during a meeting of heads of the ministry on Tuesday, but the e-mail was not sent until after the protests had ended.
“I have not the slightest intention of monitoring students,” he said, adding that he felt sad that his “good” and “heartfelt” intentions had been misconstrued.
“With empathy toward the students ... the ministry will review the methods of expressing concern, to avoid putting pressure on them in future,” he said.
While legislators across party lines asked Chiang to apologize for the e-mail, he repeatedly said the ministry would engage in “profound reflection.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said the school regulations of 22 of the 37 universities included in the e-mail still included punishments for students who hold assemblies and protests, adding that the ministry should have showed concern by eliminating such rules.
DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said that Chiang should at least apologize for the ministry’s inability to show real concern for students, even if he would not for its misguided wish to monitor them.
“We think the ministry’s words of concern are hypocritical,” said Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), convener of the Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters and a National Taiwan University graduate student, adding that the minister could have approached the students when they were protesting in poor weather, or called the premier to tell him about the students’ demands.
“Minister, I think you are full of lies, a hypocrite and a minister that does not know repentance. I don’t think you are qualified to be a minister. Please apologize to us,” said another convener of the alliance, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a student at National Tsing Hua University.
Chen said he did not believe Chiang’s comments that he would have approached the students if the protests had been about education, because he had refused to meet students at several recent demonstrations at the Ministry of Education and had even deployed riot police.
After the meeting, Chiang said: “In this case, I initially only wanted to show concern for the students, but as the case developed, it has impacted on the students and the general public. For this, I think I must express an apology out of empathy.”
He agreed to inform the schools to review their regulations within a week.
TPP RALLY: The clashes occurred near the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall on Saturday at a rally to mark the anniversary of a raid on former TPP chairman Ko Wen-je People who clashed with police at a Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) rally in Taipei on Saturday would be referred to prosecutors for investigation, said the Ministry of the Interior, which oversees the National Police Agency. Taipei police had collected evidence of obstruction of public officials and coercion by “disorderly” demonstrators, as well as contraventions of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法), the ministry said in a statement on Sunday. It added that amid the “severe pushing and jostling” by some demonstrators, eight police officers were injured, including one who was sent to hospital after losing consciousness, allegedly due to heat stroke. The Taipei
NO LIVERPOOL TRIP: Taiwan’s Lin Yu-ting, who won a gold medal in the boxing at the Paris Olympics, was embroiled in controversy about her gender at that event Taiwanese boxer Lin Yu-ting (林郁婷) will not attend this year’s World Boxing Championships in Liverpool, England, due to a lack of response regarding her sex tests from the organizer, World Boxing. The national boxing association on Monday said that it had submitted all required tests to World Boxing, but had not received a response as of Monday, the departure day for the championships. It said the decision for Lin to skip the championships was made to protect its athletes, ensuring they would not travel to the UK without a guarantee of participation. Lin, who won a gold medal in the women’s 57kg boxing
The US has revoked Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) authorization to freely ship essential gear to its main Chinese chipmaking base, potentially curtailing its production capabilities at that older-generation facility. American officials recently informed TSMC of their decision to end the Taiwanese chipmaker’s so-called validated end user (VEU) status for its Nanjing site. The action mirrors steps the US took to revoke VEU designations for China facilities owned by Samsung Electronics Co and SK Hynix Inc. The waivers are set to expire in about four months. “TSMC has received notification from the US Government that our VEU authorization for TSMC Nanjing
CHINESE INCURSIONS, SORTIES: President William Lai thanked military officers for shouldering the responsibility of defending the survival and development of Taiwan President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday said that aggression would inevitably fail, pointing — on the day before a mass military parade in Beijing — to the lessons from World War II and key victories Taiwan claims against Chinese forces in 1958. Taiwan has over the past five years repeatedly complained about heightened Chinese military activity including war games around the nation as Beijing steps up pressure to enforce territorial claims that Taipei rejects. Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), flanked by Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, are to oversee a military parade in Beijing today to mark the
RSS