Anti-curriculum changes student activist Chen Po-yu (陳柏瑜) yesterday said he and other activists have received court summons from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office to answer criminal charges on Thursday next week for acts of protest, even though the Ministry of Education had pledged to drop the charges.
Chen, a vocational high-school student from Yilan County, participated in the break-in and occupation of the Ministry of Education’s complex on July 23 to protest against the ministry’s new textbook curriculum guidelines, which they say are China-centric and lack objectivity.
Thirty-three people, including activists and three reporters, were arrested and charged with criminal trespassing on a private residence, obstruction and vandalism.
Photo: Chien Hui-ju, Taipei Times
The ministry later promised to drop the charges as part of its negotiations with anti-curriculum changes activists, a promise that Chen yesterday said the summons has cast into doubt.
“Were the charges not dropped? Why are they not doing what they promised?” he asked, adding that he was “disappointed” by the ministry’s “flip-flopping.”
Chen said the charges were nonsensical, adding that the ministry’s complex is not a “private residence,” that the protesters did not obstruct the police or offer resistance in any way and no property was damaged during their occupation.
The anti-curriculum activists’ lawyer, Wellington Koo (顧立雄), said he and his team would comment on the specifics of the charges after the prosecutors had clarified them in court, because the tersely worded court document only cited “criminal obstruction and other charges.”
Koo added that he had worried about the possibility of government deception when the ministry announced it would drop charges, and that those worries now appear justified.
Humanist Education Foundation executive director and member of the Anti-Curriculum Changes Alliance Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭) called on the ministry to make good on its claim that it was acting in the students’ best interests when it pledged to drop the charges, adding that it is too late for the ministry to “pretend it is a bystander.”
In response, Deputy Minister of Education Lin Teng-chiao (林騰蛟) said that the ministry has dropped all civil charges against the activists, but the Taipei Prosecutors’ Office is responsible for prosecuting criminal charges, such as obstruction.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office declined comment.
Additional reporting by Rachel Lin
‘UNFRIENDLY’: Changing the nationality listing of Taiwanese residents to ‘China’ goes against EU foreign policy as well as democratic and human rights principles, MOFA said Taiwan yesterday called on Denmark to correct its designation of the nationality of Taiwanese residents as “China” or face retaliatory measures. The Danish government in 2024 changed the nationality of Taiwanese citizens on their residence permits from “Taiwan” to “China.” The decision goes against EU foreign policy and contravenes democratic and human rights principles, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesman Hsiao Kuang-wei (蕭光偉) said. Denmark should present a solution acceptable to Taiwan as soon as possible and correct the erroneous designation to preserve the longstanding friendship between the two nations, Hsiao said. The issue could damage Denmark’s image and business reputation in Taiwan,
Taiwan climbed to its highest position in global export rankings in more than three decades last year, buoyed by demand linked to artificial intelligence (AI) that lifted shipments of semiconductors and technology products, Ministry of Finance data released yesterday showed. Taiwan accounted for 2.4 percent of global exports last year, or about US$640 billion, ranking 12th worldwide, the data showed. That was up four places from a year earlier and marked the nation’s best ranking since 1994, the ministry said. Taiwan’s share of global exports rose by 0.5 percentage points from the previous year, the largest increase among major economies, reflecting the nation’s
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS