The National Police Agency (NPA) on Tuesday gave Songshan Precinct Chief Huang Jia-lu (黃嘉祿) a major demerit for an incident that saw Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) trapped in the Grand Formosa Regent Taipei Hotel on the night of Nov. 4.
Huang was punished after protesters managed to surround the hotel where the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait chairman and his fellow delegates were having dinner with Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄). At the time, Huang decided not to increase the number of police officers even as the number of protesters began to grow.
The loss of control at the hotel resulted in Chen being trapped inside for more than six hours, the agency said.
The officer who was in charge when the police closed the Sunrise Records store, Beitou Precinct Chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿), received an oral reprimand.
Part of the crowd protesting Chen’s visit had 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.
Lee, followed by several other police officers, entered the store, after which the music was turned off and the store’s door closed halfway.
The crowd started to protest and during the standoff CD shelves and the store’s roller door were broken, while store manager Chang Pi (張碧) was slightly injured.
NPA Director-General Wang Cho-chun (王卓鈞) said he did not find Lee’s actions improper in any way, but said his handling of what happened afterward was questionable.
The police and Chang have offered different versions of the incident, disagreeing about why the music was turned off and who made the decision to close the store.
The store’s owner has accused Lee of lying and has asked for an investigation to establish whether police officers abused their power.
Wang told a press conference at the NPA that although he was generally satisfied with the performance of officers during Chen’s visit from Nov. 3 to Nov. 7, the police still needed to make improvements.
“We were simply doing our job to the best of our ability,” he said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS