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CROSS-STRAIT TALKS: Police remove student demonstrators

Cabinet Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan, center, yesterday sits on the ground listening to petitions from students and professors who staged a sit-in protest in front of the Executive Yuan in Taipei against heavy-handed police tactics during this week’s demonstrations against Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin. PHOTO: CNA

Hundreds of college students and professors protesting the police crackdown on demonstrations against the visit of China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in recent days were forcibly evicted yesterday by police from the front gate of the Executive Yuan.

The police later dropped the students at several different locations including Taipei’s Zhongshan District, National Taiwan University and Nangang.

Before the eviction began at around 4:40pm, the students had already decided in a vote that wherever they were dropped off, they would reassemble and discuss their next move at Liberty Square, in front of the National Taiwan Democracy Memorial Hall.

“The police said we would all be sent to different places without public transportation, but no matter where they take us, we will be back and continue our protest,” said Huang Wei-lin (黃威霖), a graduate student of politics at National Taiwan University (NTU).

The students began the sit-in on Thursday morning with a petition demanding that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) apologize for the excessive use of 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).

When hundreds of police clad in riot-gear arrived at the scene and started to encircle the students, they linked arms in an attempt to make it harder for police to remove them.

They started singing We Shall Overcome led by Fan Yun (范雲), an associate professor of sociology at NTU.

Sticking to their promise of keeping their demonstration peaceful, the students chanted “Peace, Peace, Peace” and “Human Rights, Human Rights, Human Rights” in chorus as four or five police officers carried each of them away toward the waiting patrol cars.

“We are here for peace. We don’t want to take aim at the police, but the government behind them, as it gave them the order to use excessive force,” said one student.

During the approximately 30 hour sit-in, Executive Yuan Secretary-General Hsueh Hsiang-chuan (薛香川) emerged to talk to the students, but his 50-minute conversation with them ended up making them more “disappointed.”

Yesterday morning, Hsueh took ten more questions from the students at the site after sitting on the ground with them while listening to their petition statement.

While many students were still lining up to raise questions, Hsueh decided to cut the conversation short and returned to the Executive Yuan under police protection, leaving the students shouting “[Give us a] timetable.”

“He dodged our questions. We will continue to protest until we receive a positive response,” Huang said.
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