The campaign aimed at ousting President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) yesterday accused the president and a local TV station of slander and distorting the nature of its movement, saying that it will file lawsuits against them.
"The president's remarks and the TV station's coverage have caused the public to misunderstand our movement ? We plan to file lawsuits against them," John Wei (魏千峰), an attorney allied with the camp told a press conference yesterday.
According to Wei, the president told Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) members during a trip to Ilan County yesterday that the protest against him "has been supported by other forces," implying that China was backing the movement.
PHOTO: KUO YEN-HUI, TAIPEI TIMES
Formosa TV Station, meanwhile, repeatedly broadcast a news item that claimed the camp's idea for protesters to wear red clothes and title of its plan to "besiege" the Presidential Office on Double Ten Day on Oct. 10 -- entitled "Tian Xia Wei Gong (天下圍攻)" -- were inspired by a Chinese song and suggested that the camp was associated with the Chinese Communist Party, Wei said.
The title of the planned siege and terms such as "red guards" and "red flags" appeared in the lyrics of a Chinese song titled Flowers Blossoming Everywhere in August.
The station carried biased news about the protest's intentions. We have already prepared the news clips as evidence and we ask the station to stop broadcasting it immediately," he added.
Chang Fu-chung (張富忠), a spokesman for the camp, also condemned the station and the pan-green camp for "smearing the campaign with the color red."
The director of the DPP's Ilan chapter, Soong Hsiu-shu (宋岫書), however, told the Taipei Times yesterday in a phone interview that the president did not make comments implying that China was the mastermind behind the campaign.
That opinion was expressed by Ilan residents and local opinion leaders when they met with the president in a closed-door meeting yesterday. Chen did not respond, Soong said.
Soong said that Chen told the Ilan meeting that he believed the public would gradually see clearly the true nature of the campaign.
When asked by TV reporters whether Chen mentioned China or implicated that China was behind the anti-Chen campaign at the meeting, Soong said that he repeatedly told the reporters that the president did not, but the TV stations did not show that part.
The Presidential Office issued a statement late yesterday afternoon denying that Chen said "other forces are backing" the anti-Chen demonstration.
The statement said that all remarks about the meeting were made by Soong and that Chen had not linked the campaign to China.
In response, FTV said their coverage didn't question whether the anti-Chen campaign had any connection to the "Red Army."
The TV network said it asked academic Lin Bao-hua (林寶華) and anti-Chen campaign spokesman Jerry Fan (范可欽) whether the inspiration for the campaign had come from classic Chinese songs.
Lin pointed out to FTV that he discovered that the campaign slogans used by the anti-Chen camp were taken from the songs titled Flowers Blossoming Everywhere in August (遍地開花) and All Under Heaven are Equal (天下為公), both Chinese classics.
Fan told FTV that the connection was just a coincidence, adding that the idea for the slogans came from anti-Chen campaign leader Shi Ming-teh (施明德).
As anti-Chen protesters returned to Ketagalan Boulevard yesterday, the organizers pledged to launch its Double Ten National Day "siege," despite the Taipei City Government's decision to reject the camp's proposal to hold protests in front of the Presidential Office.
Wang Li-ping (王麗萍), a spokeswoman for the Shih camp, said it didn't need an application for the "siege" anyway.
"It's unnecessary to get approval for the siege. Just like participants of the Double Ten day ceremony don't need to file an application to attend," she said.
Additional reporting by Ko Shu-ling
Alain Robert, known as the "French Spider-Man," praised Alex Honnold as exceptionally well-prepared after the US climber completed a free solo ascent of Taipei 101 yesterday. Robert said Honnold's ascent of the 508m-tall skyscraper in just more than one-and-a-half hours without using safety ropes or equipment was a remarkable achievement. "This is my life," he said in an interview conducted in French, adding that he liked the feeling of being "on the edge of danger." The 63-year-old Frenchman climbed Taipei 101 using ropes in December 2004, taking about four hours to reach the top. On a one-to-10 scale of difficulty, Robert said Taipei 101
A preclearance service to facilitate entry for people traveling to select airports in Japan would be available from Thursday next week to Feb. 25 at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taoyuan International Airport Corp (TIAC) said on Tuesday. The service was first made available to Taiwanese travelers throughout the winter vacation of 2024 and during the Lunar New Year holiday. In addition to flights to the Japanese cities of Hakodate, Asahikawa, Akita, Sendai, Niigata, Okayama, Takamatsu, Kumamoto and Kagoshima, the service would be available to travelers to Kobe and Oita. The service can be accessed by passengers of 15 flight routes operated by
Taiwanese and US defense groups are collaborating to introduce deployable, semi-autonomous manufacturing systems for drones and components in a boost to the nation’s supply chain resilience. Taiwan’s G-Tech Optroelectronics Corp subsidiary GTOC and the US’ Aerkomm Inc on Friday announced an agreement with fellow US-based Firestorm Lab to adopt the latter’s xCell, a technology featuring 3D printers fitted in 6.1m container units. The systems enable aerial platforms and parts to be produced in high volumes from dispersed nodes capable of rapid redeployment, to minimize the risk of enemy strikes and to meet field requirements, they said. Firestorm chief technology officer Ian Muceus said
MORE FALL: An investigation into one of Xi’s key cronies, part of a broader ‘anti-corruption’ drive, indicates that he might have a deep distrust in the military, an expert said China’s latest military purge underscores systemic risks in its shift from collective leadership to sole rule under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and could disrupt its chain of command and military capabilities, a national security official said yesterday. If decisionmaking within the Chinese Communist Party has become “irrational” under one-man rule, the Taiwan Strait and the regional situation must be approached with extreme caution, given unforeseen risks, they added. The anonymous official made the remarks as China’s Central Military Commission Vice Chairman Zhang Youxia (張又俠) and Joint Staff Department Chief of Staff Liu Zhenli (劉振立) were reportedly being investigated for suspected “serious
RSS