Taiwan Referendum Alliance convener Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) yesterday criticized the police for fining him for violating the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) when he walked around outside the Presidential Office with a donation box and some supporters on Wednesday.
Tsay went to Zhongzheng First Precinct police station on Wednesday to pay the fines he had previously received for violating the Act. Tsay had received tickets totaling more than NT$800,000 because he has been conducting a sit-in demonstration against the Assembly and Parade Act outside the Legislative Yuan since October 2008.
Because Tsay found that he did not have enough money to pay the fines, he decided to walk around with a donation box to raise money.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsay and his supporters were stopped by the police when they approached the side gate of the Presidential Office. They refused to stop and continued to walk around. They received a warning from the police, who said that Tsay and his supporters were in violation of the Assembly and Parade Act and they were asked to “disband.”
“We were only a few people walking on the street trying to raise money, it was neither an assembly nor a parade,” Tsay told the Taipei Times.
“It’s my freedom to wear whatever I want and take whatever I want when I walk on the street — the police have violated my freedom,” he said.
He said while there were other people with him, police officers only surrounded him.
“Is there a law that says that Tsay Ting-kuei cannot walk around the Presidential Office?” he asked. “They could arrest me if I had tried to walk into the Presidential Office, but I was merely walking on the sidewalk outside. The police abused their power.”
Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳) agreed with Tsay.
Tsai said what had happened to Tsay showed that the Assembly and Parade Act is ridiculous and unnecessary.
“What Tsay Ting-kuei did would not be considered a violation of the Assembly and Parade Act if he did it elsewhere. What he did was declared illegal because the Presidential Office is a ‘sensitive’ place,” Tsai said. “This shows that the Act gives police too much power to decide what constitutes a violation of the law.”
On the other hand, police said the way officers acted was legal and justified.
“[Tsay and his supporters] walked in group — though there was quite a distance between them — and they held placards with slogans. Of course it was a demonstration,” said Yang Chih-chieh (楊志傑), the commander at the scene on Wednesday. “We may allow them to walk around elsewhere, but the area surrounding the Presidential Office is a restricted zone, so we had to stop them.”
Zhongzheng First Police Precinct Chief Inspector Jason Yu (于增祥) said he understood why many people do not like the Assembly and Parade Act.
“Whether it’s a good law or a bad law, as long as it’s still there we have to enforce it,” he said.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
RSS