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Sunrise Records accuses police of lying about incident

In a recent statement, Sunrise Records rebutted Taipei City police’s explanations of an alleged violation of civil liberties earlier this month and accused Beitou Precinct Chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿) of lying.

On the night of Nov. 4, hundreds of people staged an anti-China demonstration outside the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei, where Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was attending a dinner banquet hosted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) honorary chairman Lien Chan (連戰). Part of the protesting crowd spilled over to the sidewalk in front of Sunrise Records.

Some of the protesters started dancing to music from an album titled Songs of Taiwan, which was being played in the store. All of a sudden, Lee, followed by several other police officers, entered the store. The music was soon turned off and the store’s door closed halfway.

The crowd started to protest and during the standoff CD shelves and the roll-up door were broken, while store manager Chang Pi (張碧) was slightly injured.

Lee told Taipei City councilors at the City Council on Monday that he had respectfully asked the store to turn the volume down after receiving a noise complaint.

As the crowd, believing police had turned off the music, started pouring into the store, “the owner tried to close the door because they felt threatened,” Lee said.

A statement by the store, however, told a different story.

“It was not us, it was the police officers who felt threatened and wanted to close the door that night,” it said.

"By forcing the door close, police broke the roll-up door and CD shelves that were in the way," the statement said.

The store owners, who paid for the repairs, said they would have dropped the matter had it not been for Lee's comments to the effect that it was the store that had wanted the door closed and that police had not done anything wrong.

"We hoped Lee would be quiet, because that would mean he still knows what is right and wrong," it said. "But instead, Lee, with the government behind him, refuses to admit his faults and lied."

The only way to make things right at this point, the statement said, is for an investigation to be held and for police officers who abused their powers to apologize and be reprimanded accordingly.


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