Nearly 2,000 protesters waving red and blue Taiwanese flags and chanting "shame" on Saturday called for an independent probe into Taiwan's disputed national election.
"We want a recount," retired accountant Robert Chi said as he clutched US and Taiwanese flags, apparently unaware that the president had already said there would be a recount. "We want the president to hear us. He lied."
The rally was part of a series of protests in the US that echoed protests in Taiwan. Nearly a half-million people gathered in Taipei on Saturday to protest the results of the March 20 election that opponents say was rigged by President Chen Shui-bian (
In Los Angeles, protesters from as far away as Phoenix gathered for about two hours in a parking lot in the city's bustling Chinatown neighborhood. They waved banners that said "Recount the ballots" and "Justice, truth, fairness" as music and speeches blared over loudspeakers.
Police estimated the crowd reached about 1,800 people.
"It's not a justified and fair election,'' said Terry Lee, a protest coordinator who worked for People First Party candidate James Soong (
"All the polls showed [Chen] should have lost the election," Lee said, apparently unaware that several polls indicated the race was too close to call in the weeks prior to the election.
An afternoon rally was also planned in San Francisco.
"I think they should have a whole new election," said Sherrien Shui, a Los Angeles wedding planner who was born in Taiwan.
Wearing a yellow headband that said "Justice," she compared the circumstances around the election, including the assassination attempt, to "a movie, a play, that he [Chen] directed himself."
Although pan-blue leaders have made similar claims, they have given no evidence to support such conspiracy theories.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
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IN FULL SWING: Recall drives against lawmakers in Hualien, Taoyuan and Hsinchu have reached the second-stage threshold, the campaigners said Campaigners in a recall petition against Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Yen Kuan-heng (顏寬恒) in Taichung yesterday said their signature target is within sight, and that they need a big push to collect about 500 more signatures from locals to reach the second-stage threshold. Recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers Johnny Chiang (江啟臣), Yang Chiung-ying (楊瓊瓔) and Lo Ting-wei (羅廷瑋) are also close to the 10 percent threshold, and campaigners are mounting a final push this week. They need about 800 signatures against Chiang and about 2,000 against Yang. Campaigners seeking to recall Lo said they had reached the threshold figure over the
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