Student activists occupying the Legislative Yuan yesterday issued an ultimatum to the government, demanding that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) respond positively to their demands by noon today, or they would take further action.
“We hereby call on Ma and Wang to respond positively and clearly to our demands,” Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a National Tsing Hua University graduate student and one of the main leaders of the protest, said at a press conference in the main hall of the legislative building in Taipei. “We would like Wang to tell us how he plans to deal with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), and we would like the government to reject the service trade pact with China and suspend all cross-strait talks until legislation on the monitoring of cross-strait agreements is drafted and passed.”
“If Ma and Wang fail to respond satisfactorily to our demands, we will take further action, the specifics of which we will announce at that time,” he added.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Chen said that nearly 60 percent of the public supports the protesters’ occupation of the legislative chamber, which “shows that we are not just a few, rather, we stand for the majority of the public and we are occupying a chamber that belongs to the people and is meant to work on behalf of the people, since the people’s representatives are not doing their job.”
According to police estimates, there were several thousand protesters surrounding the Legislative Yuan earlier in the day, but the number passed 10,000 in the evening, after rumors spread that the police may break in to clear the legislative chamber before daybreak today.
At about 2am yesterday, Wuer Kaixi, one of the Chinese student leaders at the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre, appeared on the legislative floor to voice his support for the students’ movement.
“This is 100 percent democracy in action and I admire what the Taiwanese students are doing,” he told the occupiers. “President Ma Ying-jeou claims that he was a student activist when he was younger, but what he’s doing now is a far cry from upholding democratic values; he should come here to apologize to you, the students.”
“As for Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), I would like to ask him to resign,” Wuer Kaixi added, before singing Goodnight Taiwan and chanting slogans urging the government to reject the trade agreement along with the students, triggering rounds of applause.
Not long after Wuer Kaixi left, another former Tiananmen Square student leader, Wang Dan (王丹), also put in an appearance at the legislature, but declined to speak, saying he was only there to support the demonstrators.
During the day, more than 40 university professors — from National Taiwan University, National Chengchi University, National Taiwan University of Arts, National Tsing Hua University and Fu Jen Catholic University — appeared on a stage outside the Legislative Yuan on Jinan Road to teach “civic lessons” to students.
Many professors, such as Fu Jen associate professor of psychology Ho Tung-hung (河東洪), invited their students to join them for a lesson on the streets outside the Legislative Yuan, or offered them official leave if they wanted to skip the class to join the protest.
In a letter, National Dong Hwa University president Wu Mao-kun (吳茂昆) praised the students’ action.
“I admire you [students] for showing concern about current issues and bravely voicing your views,” the letter read. “I fully respect your decision if you choose to skip class to join the protest.”
Meanwhile, to ensure the health of the protesters and handle any medical emergencies, about 15 physicians, nurses and pharmacists were on standby at the Legislative Yuan.
“There are physicians, pharmacists and nurses here to handle simple medical needs,” physician Lin Hsin-jung (林信榮) said from the legislature. “Most of our medical supplies were donated by the public or lawmakers, and we [the medical professionals] are here voluntarily to show our support.”
The Taipei-based Legal Aid Foundation’s and the Judicial Reform Foundation have also offered their services to the protesters should they be arrested by police, urging the students to call (02) 3393-8666 for information about legal aid.
Within 24 hours of the hotline being set up, more than 100 lawyers had volunteered to help represent the activists in case of arrests, including Wellington Koo (顧立雄), a Democratic Progressive Party hopeful for the Taipei mayoral poll; Liu Chi-wei (劉繼蔚), who represented late army corporal Hung Chung-chiu’s (洪仲丘) family; and Tseng Wei-kai (曾威凱), who has represented Hualon Corp’s (華隆) laid-off workers.
Additional reporting by Ching Jen-hao
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have declared they survived recall votes to remove them from office today, although official results are still pending as the vote counting continues. Although final tallies from the Central Election Commission (CEC) are still pending, preliminary results indicate that the recall campaigns against all seven KMT lawmakers have fallen short. As of 6:10 pm, Taichung Legislators Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) and Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔), Hsinchu County Legislator Lin Szu-ming (林思銘), Nantou County Legislator Ma Wen-chun (馬文君) and New Taipei City Legislator Lo Ming-tsai (羅明才) had all announced they
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday visited Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), as the chipmaker prepares for volume production of Nvidia’s next-generation artificial intelligence (AI) chips. It was Huang’s third trip to Taiwan this year, indicating that Nvidia’s supply chain is deeply connected to Taiwan. Its partners also include packager Siliconware Precision Industries Co (矽品精密) and server makers Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Quanta Computer Inc (廣達). “My main purpose is to visit TSMC,” Huang said yesterday. “As you know, we have next-generation architecture called Rubin. Rubin is very advanced. We have now taped out six brand new
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant