Newly-appointed Minister of the Interior Su Jia-chyuan (
"The rally will be the first challenge I will face in my new post; however, I have confidence in Chung Cheng First Precinct Taipei City Police Department and the Taipei City Government to handle tomorrow's rally. I expect the rally to end successfully," Su said at the Ministry of the Interior (MOI), where he officially took over the position from the former minister, Yu Cheng-hsien (
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
Su stressed at the ceremony that he had faith that Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (
As to the outlook for his new post, Su stated that keeping society safe will be at the top of his priority list.
"Although it has been said so often that boosting the economy is the most important issue facing our country, without a safe society to live in, it is impossible to build a strong economy. I think keeping society safe is closely related to a strong economy," said Su.
Furthermore, Su indicated that he would put in his best effort to enable the police force to gain self-respect and confidence, as well as to win public trust.
Following the ceremony, Ma paid a personal visit to Su at the MOI to discuss the issue of jurisdiction when it comes to clearing rally crowds.
At the meeting with Su, Ma expressed his discontent with the MOI's last-minute order to the city government to take charge of clearing the rally along Ketagalan Boulevard on the night of March 27.
"On the night of March 27 and early morning March 28, Yu called me to state that the crowd had to be cleared by 1am, and I told him that the city government did not have the authority to act upon the central government's request at that point. Besides, since Taipei City is a special municipality (
The crowd-clearing effort on the night of March 27 was mainly credited to Ma, as he stayed up all night to monitor the situation.
Ma also stated that should any disorder break out during today's rally, Su should follow the principle to let the city government handle the situation.
In response to Ma's request, Su emphasized that he is behind Ma in regard to today's rally.
"I give you my full support; however, I would also like to express the cabinet's concern that should any law-breaking acts take place tomorrow [today], legal action must commence immediately," Su said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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