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CROSS-STRAIT TALKS: Students stage sit-in, petition Ma

Some 500 college students staged a sit-in yesterday in front of the Executive Yuan over the police response to protests against Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin’s (陳雲林) visit.

“The protest will continue through the night, into tomorrow and [through] tomorrow ... until our three appeals are accepted,” said Lee Ming-tsung (李明璁), the group’s spokesman and an associate professor of sociology at National Taiwan University.

The group demanded in a written petition that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) apologize for the use of excessive force by police, that National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) and National Security Bureau Director Tsai Chao-ming (蔡朝明) step down and that the government scrap the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法).

Chang Tieh-chih (張鐵志), a doctoral student at the department of political science at Columbia University, called on Liu to talk to the students, who were blocked by dozens of police at the front gate of the Executive Yuan.

Liu convened a regular weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday morning, with many high-level officials in attendance, but no one emerged to talk to the students.

The protest was organized via an online drive appealing to students at various universities. The group wore black T-shirts to symbolize their anger.

“When I saw on TV that protesters were being treated violently by the police, I felt really confused. How can the police be violent toward people who haven’t even broken the law and are just carrying the national flag?” said Chang Yi-shih (張逸詩), a student at National Taipei University.

More than 1,000 people, many of whom were professors and students, had signed the three petitions and the group was still collecting signatures, Lee said.

“Do we really have to reduce the standard of democracy and freedom in Taiwan to the low level of authoritarian China for the sake of enhancing cross-strait economic ties?” Lee asked.

“It’s not about the police’s use of excessive force or about their party affiliation. It’s about the government exerting its power in a violent way to repress civil society,” Lee said.
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