Following violent clashes between opponents and proponents of President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) in Kaohsiung City on Monday night, a tense shouting match took place yesterday between rival protesters in Tainan City, where anti-Chen protesters were staging a sit-in.
To prevent scuffling between the two camps, more than 100 police officers were despatched to the scene and barricades were set up.
An anti-Chen supporter wearing a red shirt had her red car smashed by pro-Chen protesters when she was on her way out of the protest site.
TV news clips showed pro-Chen supporters hitting and kicking the back of the car as the woman drove away.
One protester shattered the rear windshield, while another used his helmet to smash the front windshield and dent the hood.
Another anti-Chen woman was hit by a rock and was later rushed to the nearby hospital.
An Asia Television cameraman was hit in the mouth by a placard that had been thrown at him.
TV political commentator Wang Ben-hu (
The anti-Chen sit-in was scheduled to end at 10pm and by 10:18 participants were being transported from the site in police buses.
Tainan City Police Chief Wang Wen-chung (
Meanwhile, on Monday night, approximately 100 anti-Chen protesters and 2,000 Chen supporters engaged in a shouting match at the intersection of Chunghua Road and Shihchuan Road in downtown Kaohsiung, where Chen Chun-sheng (
Significant numbers of the president's supporters in this traditional Democratic Progressive Party stronghold thronged to the site after watching TV news reports of the standoff.
Instead, divided by police barricades, the rival camps traded barbs.
Some of Chen's supporters clashed with police while trying to break through police barricades.
While the number of Chen's supporters on the scene continued to increase, the anti-Chen protesters gradually left under police escort. At about 11:30pm, the president's supporters broke through the police barricades, plunging the scene into chaos. Police immediately erected barbed wire barricades and used a police bus to remove the remaining 20-odd anti-Chen activists from the scene.
The situation was brought under control by around midnight.
Police said six separate altercations had taken place and that three Chen supporters had been arrested on suspicion of assaulting anti-Chen protesters and police officers. The three were freed early yesterday morning after being interviewed by police. Police said they would decide later whether to charge the individuals after perusing recordings of the incidents.
Kaohsiung City Police Chief Tsai Yi-ren (
Tsai told the press that police would not tolerate any further protests that were not approved by the city government.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do