Former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) yesterday visited members of the Wild Strawberry Student Movement staging a protest at Liberty Square and promised to help them in their campaign to have the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法) amended.
Lee urged Taiwan Solidarity Union Chairman Huang Kun-huei (黃昆輝), who accompanied him, to back the students as well and offered words of encouragement ahead of a rally scheduled for this afternoon. Lee said he hoped the students would not get sick from sitting outside in the cold weather.
The Wild Strawberries have run a weeks-long campaign calling for legislators to scrap regulations in the assembly law that require organizers of protests to seek a permit from police for any events. The protesters also demand that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Liu Chao-shiuan (劉兆玄) apologize and that National Police Agency (NPA) Director-General Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) and National Security Bureau Director-General Tsai Chao-ming (蔡朝明) resign from their posts over what the students have called police brutality against protesters during a visit by a Chinese delegation last month.
PHOTO: WANG YI-SUNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Lee yesterday said he understood the students’ dissatisfaction with the law and agreed the regulations should be changed.
He said democracy and freedom were the nation’s most prized possessions and that the true meaning of democracy was that sovereignty rests with the public. The government should not require police permits to demonstrate, Lee said, and police should only intervene if a demonstration turns violent.
Asked about Ma’s comment earlier this week that a visit by the Dalai Lama would not be appropriate, Lee said there was no acceptable reason for the government’s opposition to a visit.
The public is under economic stress, forcing it to focus on money matters, Lee said.
“What is needed in this situation is religious comfort and there should be no talk of this not being an appropriate time [for a visit by the Dalai Lama],” he said.
In related news, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hsieh Kuo-liang (謝國樑) said yesterday he would leave for the US today on behalf of the National Security Council (NSC) to address Washington’s concerns about eroding judicial impartiality.
Hsieh said the NSC felt it was necessary to explain the matter to friends in the US as they, including Ma’s mentor during his studies at Harvard University, professor Jerome Cohen, had gotten the wrong impression about the situation in Taiwan after a visit by Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chai Trong-rong (蔡同榮).
Chai visited the US last month and expressed concern that the government was influencing prosecutors in cases against DPP figures.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SHIH HSIU-CHUAN
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS