More than 300 protestors continued to sit outside the legislature yesterday, wearing straw hats and using umbrellas to counter the scorching summer heat.
The group appeared to be in high spirits on the second day of the three-day protest, occasionally bursting into Taiwanese folk songs led by on-stage musicians.
The protest, which started on Thursday and is expected to wrap up tonight, is directed at the government’s plan to sign an economic cooperation framework agreement (ECFA) with China, which could take place as early as next month.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
Organizers say that the protest — staged outside the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)-controlled legislature — is designed to increase pressure on President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to hold a referendum on the controversial agreement before engaging in further cross-strait negotiations.
Organizers said that the entire protest would be broadcast live on the Internet at www.ecfareferendum.tw.
Arriving early in the morning, former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), one of the organizers of the event, said that he hoped the government “would listen to the voice of the people ... Ma’s refusal to let the Taiwanese people have a say on this [agreement] is not only anti-democratic, it is against his own political promises.”
In a new addition, four 8m high banners were erected emblazoned with the slogans “Give me back my human rights” and “Protect Taiwan’s sovereignty.”
Dozens of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials and a number of DPP lawmakers joined the protest early in the afternoon, along with farming and labor organization representatives.
Business students from National Taiwan University and the National University of Kaohsiung also took turns making speeches on the podium, criticizing Ma’s China policies, including a plan to allow Chinese students to study in Taiwan from next year.
While the number of protesters diminished noticeably from the crowds on Thursday, dozens of curious spectators and passersby joined the event.
A woman in her 60s surnamed Cheng, who had traveled from Kaohsiung, said that she came to express her concern that Ma had failed to take into account “China’s dangerous motives toward Taiwan.”
Also present were a dozen street peddlers, shooting nervous glances at the police there to keep order. While some were there to make a quick dollar, others said that they supported the protest.
A sticky rice candy seller doing brisk business, who refused to be named, said he and others were there without a license, but the police largely tolerated their presence and they would leave if asked.
Another elderly snack seller, with Taiwanese independence flags perched on top of his mobile stall, said that he could not leave his stand unattended but wanted to come to the scene and voice his “support and love for Taiwan.”
The gathering, which in addition to Hsieh is also led by former Cabinet secretary-general Lee Ying-yuan (李應元), is one of the biggest protests over the ECFA to date, although the DPP has vowed to hold even larger demonstrations next month.
Former DPP lawmaker Julian Kuo (郭正亮), who is also a member of the DPP’s ECFA response team, said that the timing of the DPP event would depend on when the government plans to hold the next round of cross-strait talks.
He said that if the talks were to be held in the middle of next month “then the protest would very likely take place on or before [June 11].”
This protest is expected to end today at 10pm, following speeches by a number of DPP officials, including a possible appearance by Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊).
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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