Print

Mail

wiki links

War of words over Ketagalan rallies continues apace

The fight between the pan-blue and pan-green camps over permits for holding rallies on Ketagalan Boulevard ahead of the presidential election continued yesterday, as the pan-greens condemned the pan-blues for wanting to occupy the boulevard for a whole week before the election.

The Taipei City Government granted the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) permits to hold rallies on the boulevard, a popular site for political rallies and protests, from March 15 to March 21.

After failing to obtain a permit to hold rallies on the boulevard, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) instead applied to hold rallies surrounding the boulevard on the intersection of Aiguo E Road and Zhongshan S Road from March 17 to March 21.

Lining up in front of Taipei City Hall, Tseng Tsung-kai (曾琮愷), an assistant of the DPP Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠), condemned the KMT for sending party members to line up round-the-clock since March 14 in order to obtain permits.

"They take turns and line up here 24/7 ? We don't have the manpower to do this," he said.

KMT Taipei City Councilor Lai Su-ju (賴素如), who also serves as the party's cultural and information department director, shrugged off the DPP criticism, insisting that the party had followed the application procedure.

Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said regulations regarding applications for rally permits had been the same since 2006, and the KMT received the permits because it handed in its application before the DPP.

According to Taipei City's New Construction Office, the regulations require applicants to hand in their application forms and supporting documents to the office eight to 30 days prior to the date of the rally, with the city government granting the permits based on a first-come, first-served basis.

Although the two camps have obtained permits from the city government, they still need to seek approval from the Taipei City Police Department to hold rallies.

According to Lee Chin-tien (李金田), director of the Taipei City Police Department's Zhongzheng First Precinct, the two camps must hand in applications with rally proposals at least six days before the rally date.
This story has been viewed 1435 times.