Following the demonstration outside its office on Friday, the Zhongzheng First Police Precinct yesterday said it resolved after a meeting that the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan (ART) would again be allowed to assemble on Jinan Road, as it has been doing for the past five years.
More than 1,000 people gathered outside the precinct office on Friday night to protest against Precinct Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧) reneging on his pledge, made in the early hours of Friday morning, to not disperse protesters from the square outside the Legislative Yuan, the venue where the ART had organized talks during the occupation of Legislative Yuan and continued to do so after the Sunflower Movement’s exit on Thursday.
The protesters, who assembled after a call on the Internet to “pass by” the precinct office on Friday evening, also demanded that the office retract its “unconstitutional order” on Wednesday that its approval of the ART’s application to assemble on Jinan Road (one of the roads surrounding the Legislative Yuan) until Saturday be scrapped, saying the ART had violated the law several times and that “any of the organization’s future requests to assemble will no longer be approved.”
The protesters said the police had not only failed to make good on their promise, but also violated the law — by forcibly evicting the protesters — and the Constitution — by unilaterally denying a particular group its right to assemble.
The “passersby” demanding Fang to apologize and step down, has sparked disputes online even among those who support the Sunflower movement.
Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral aspirants Sean Lien (連勝文) and Ting Shou-chung (丁守中) have all expressed support for Fang, with Hau saying that he would not accept Fang’s resignation, which had been orally made at the protest site.
However, the precinct office yesterday issued a press release saying “since [the ART’s] act of illegally occupying the plaza had ended, the group’s assembly has now been [re-]sanctioned.”
The office said that although the organization had been continually applying for and receiving approval to assemble on Jinan Road since February 2009, “it nevertheless had illegally led the crowd to break into the legislature’s front plaza and tear down a plaque on March 18, obstructed police officers performing their duties on April 3 and again led the crowd to areas where assemblies and parades are not allowed [the presidential residence and the Executive Yuan] on April 6 and 7.”
“In view of the group constantly harming the social order and damaging public interests, the office has decided [on Wednesday] to revoke the approval for its assembly from April 9 to 19 in accordance with the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法),” it said.
The office said that because the ART had reapplied for approval on Thursday and the police had “persuaded” the protesters to leave the legislature’s front plaza on Friday, thereby “rendering the illegal act of plaza occupation non-existent,” the group’s application to assemble on Jinan Road had been approved again.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS