The Executive Yuan yesterday announced it was dropping all charges against students who stormed its compound in Taipei in 2014 on the grounds that the filing of the lawsuits were prompted by political considerations in the first place.
At a news conference yesterday morning, Executive Yuan spokesman Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said Premier Lin Chuan (林全) has ordered the withdrawal of all charges of criminal offenses that are indictable only upon complaint against 126 students who occupied the Executive Yuan in March 2014.
“Premier Lin said that as the Sunflower movement was a political event rather than a legal one, it should be handled with leniency based on the principle of promoting harmony and defusing conflicts. That is why he decided to retract the charges,” Tung said.
Tung said that the decision by former premier Jiang Yi-huah’s (江宜樺) Cabinet to charge the students with illegally entering a building and damage to property was motivated by political considerations.
The demands issued by leaders of the movement at the time have become part of public consensuses and have prompted the legislature to endeavor to enact a law governing the signing of cross-strait agreements, which indicated the legitimacy of and contributions made by Sunflower movement activists, Tung said.
“As such, this case should not be treated purely as a legal matter,” Tung added.
Students’ occupation of the Executive Yuan’s main chamber took place from the night of March 23 to the early hours of March 24, days after activists seized the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan on March 18 to protest against a controversial cross-strait service in trade agreement.
It was primarily sparked by Jiang and then-president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) continued refusal to accept activists’ calls for the retraction of the agreement.
About 130 students who stormed the Executive Yuan were indicted, some of them on state-prosecutable offenses and others on offenses indictable only upon complaint.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) issued a news release expressing regret over Lin’s decision, saying a democracy without the rule of law is only a pseudo-democracy.
“That the Executive Yuan decided to handle the case in a political manner not only constitutes a connivance of the actions of breaking into government buildings and damaging public property, but also indicates a tacit consent from the new government to people’s employment of illegal means for political purposes,” KMT Culture and Communications Committee deputy director-general Wang Hong-wei (王鴻薇) said in the statement.
Wang said that Sunflower movement participants’ occupation of the Executive Yuan went beyond the law and the boundaries allowed for civic movements, adding that the withdrawal of lawsuits was irresponsible and politically motivated.
New Power Party Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), who along with other prominent Sunflower movement figures is subject to a separate lawsuit for inciting people to occupy the Legislative Yuan, praised the government’s move as a further step toward affirming the Sunflower movement’s contribution to Taiwan’s democracy.
“Premier Lin has affirmed the Sunflower movement’s contribution to Taiwan’s democracy with positive comments about demands, such as the need to pass legislation supervising cross-straits agreements before reviewing the trade in services agreement. I highly commend his decision to go a step further and withdraw the suits,” he said.
News of the Executive Yuan’s decision also drew applause from student activists and civic groups, with calls for further action to investigate police abuses and respond to activists’ demands.
“This was originally not something suitable for the judicial system to address, so it needed to be handled politically,” Judicial Reform Foundation director Kao Jung-chih (高榮志) said.
The legal team for the accused activists affirmed Lin’s decision, while calling for the Executive Yuan to establish an independent investigative mechanism to determine the identities of the police officers who committed acts of violence against activists, as well as their superiors.
“This was an important incident in Taiwan’s democratic development and no matter what, the new investigation will be better than what the police did,” Kao said, calling for the Executive Yuan’s internal documentation relating to the incident to be released.
He added that there are still 21 cases related to the incident that were brought independently by prosecutors and would not be affected by the government’s decision.
After the Legislative Yuan chose not to press trespassing charges, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last year announced a bevy of indictments focusing on incitement and inferring with the conduct of official duties.
Sunflower movement leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) said that the government’s decision was “reasonable,” because many activists were sued frivolously, adding that activists cared more about how the new government responds to the Sunflower movement’s demands.
“For this to count as an affirmation of the Sunflower movement, we still have to see how they respond to our demands for supervisory articles and constitutional reform,” he said.
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
OBJECTS AT SEA: Satellites with synthetic-aperture radar could aid in the detection of small Chinese boats attempting to illegally enter Taiwan, the space agency head said Taiwan aims to send the nation’s first low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite into space in 2027, while the first Formosat-8 and Formosat-9 spacecraft are to be launched in October and 2028 respectively, the National Science and Technology Council said yesterday. The council laid out its space development plan in a report reviewed by members of the legislature’s Education and Culture Committee. Six LEO satellites would be produced in the initial phase, with the first one, the B5G-1A, scheduled to be launched in 2027, the council said in the report. Regarding the second satellite, the B5G-1B, the government plans to work with private contractors
‘OF COURSE A COUNTRY’: The president outlined that Taiwan has all the necessary features of a nation, including citizens, land, government and sovereignty President William Lai (賴清德) discussed the meaning of “nation” during a speech in New Taipei City last night, emphasizing that Taiwan is a country as he condemned China’s misinterpretation of UN Resolution 2758. The speech was the first in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to give across Taiwan. It is the responsibility of Taiwanese citizens to stand united to defend their national sovereignty, democracy, liberty, way of life and the future of the next generation, Lai said. This is the most important legacy the people of this era could pass on to future generations, he said. Lai went on to discuss
MISSION: The Indo-Pacific region is ‘the priority theater,’ where the task of deterrence extends across the entire region, including Taiwan, the US Pacific Fleet commander said The US Navy’s “mission of deterrence” in the Indo-Pacific theater applies to Taiwan, Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Stephen Koehler told the South China Sea Conference on Tuesday. The conference, organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), is an international platform for senior officials and experts from countries with security interests in the region. “The Pacific Fleet’s mission is to deter aggression across the Western Pacific, together with our allies and partners, and to prevail in combat if necessary, Koehler said in the event’s keynote speech. “That mission of deterrence applies regionwide — including the South China Sea and Taiwan,” he
RSS