A rally to protest the controversial Miramar Resort Village construction project on Taitung County’s Shanyuan Beach (杉原沙灘) and other development projects along the nation’s eastern coastline is scheduled to be held in Taipei this afternoon.
Hosted by an alliance of a dozen environmental groups, the rally is to start at the Ding-Hao Plaza (頂好商圈) in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義).
The crowd is to be joined by a group of people who set off on foot from Taitung County on April 4 on a protest walk titled: “Don’t say goodbye to the eastern coast movement.”
Citizens of the Earth, Taiwan, said the legitimacy of the Miramar Resort Village construction project has been in doubt for the past nine years, and although the project has lost two lawsuits, the developer is still trying to start operations this summer and claim it as a legal construction.
Listing several proposed development projects along the nation’s eastern coast, Lin Shu-ling (林淑玲), a member of an Amis Aborigine community near Shanyuan Beach and a long-term activist against the project, said that in addition to the Miramar project — that has been found to have caused serious damage to the natural coastal environment — there are many other projects waiting to be approved.
Lin added that activists fear that the eastern coastline could be totally ruined in a short space of time.
After gathering at the plaza, the rally is scheduled to set off toward Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, where organizers said a music event will be held from 4pm until midnight, followed tomorrow morning by the burning of “dried wolf dung” — a traditional method of sending signals used by Aborigines — which will symbolize sending their message to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
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