Minister of the Interior Lee Yi-yang (
Lee slammed Ma in a ministry press release for having allowed anti-Chen protesters to demonstrate at the station day and night since Saturday, saying that the station was the city's premier transportation hub and consequently unsuitable for an around-the-clock protest.
Ma risked the safety of Taipei residents by allowing such a protest to take place at a busy transit point, Lee said, adding that travelers whose political opinions differed from those of protesters were being accosted.
A Taipei City Government spokeswoman at the Department of Information refused to comment on Lee's criticism of the mayor.
"We need to get confirmation of Mayor Ma's position before we can say anything," she said, identifying herself merely as "Ms. Wu" (
She added that she didn't know when or if the mayor would respond to Lee's comments.
Making room
According to a press release issued by the Taipei City Government on Sunday, Ma said that he had agreed to move the anti-Chen protest from Ketagalan Boulevard to the railway station to make room for pro-Chen supporters who have protested on the boulevard since Saturday. In order to separate the two groups of protesters, Ma had no choice but to allow the anti-Chen protesters to move to the station, the release said.
Chen Feng-nan (陳峰男), deputy director of the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA), said on Thursday that the Taipei Railway Station was "not a place for protests."
Chen and Railway Police Bureau Deputy Director Lee Chen-kuang (
However, numerous protesters have been sleeping and protesting in the station, according to local media.
"It's actually okay if [the protesters] rest [in the station] at night," Chen told the Taipei Times yesterday, adding that some protesters may have shouted slogans "once or twice," but hadn't interfered with railway operations.
`Just too many'
"There are just too many [protesters], and you can't force them [to leave]," administration spokesman Teng Chia-chi (
Lee Chen-kuang told the Taipei Times that protesters in the station are often travelers, too.
Exceptions need to be made as long as safety and order are not compromised, he added.
Both Chen Feng-nan and Lee Chen-kuang said that protests haven't interfered with railway operations, and that the trains were running smoothly.
Regarding recent altercations between the pro-Chen and anti-Chen camps at the protests, Lee Yi-yang said in the ministry statement that unlawful behavior would not be tolerated.
"Since the anti-Chen sit-in began, anti-Chen protesters have turned over cars and motorbikes," Lee Yi-yang is quoted as saying in the release. He added that pro-Chen protesters had sabotaged the broadcast booths of CtiTV and the Eastern Broadcasting Company at their demonstration.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) was shown on local television escorting a CtiTV anchorman on Saturday from Ketagalan Boulevard as pro-Chen protesters jostled the newscaster and overran his booth.
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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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching