The Taipei District Court yesterday released student activist Dennis Wei (魏揚) without bail, after prosecutors accused him of having led a protest that escalated into the storming of the Executive Yuan building in Taipei on Sunday night.
Wei, a graduate student at National Tsing Hua University’s Institute of Sociology, walked out of the courtroom at 12:20pm to the cheers of his family and supporters, before tearfully hugging his mother.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said Wei has been charged with violating Article 150 of the Criminal Code — inciting people in an open assembly to employ threats or violence — which could see him face between one and seven years in prison if found guilty.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
He was also charged with obstructing an officer in the performance of their duties; destruction, abandonment and damage of property; breaking and entering; and with violating the Cultural Heritage Preservation Act (文化資產保存法), among other counts, the office said.
According to the district court’s ruling, Wei posted a message on Facebook at 9pm on Sunday calling for students to join the occupation of the Executive Yuan — two hours after the siege had begun — which indicated that he did not play a leading role in inciting protesters to occupy the complex.
The ruling added that several students arrested and under investigation have said in their statements that Wei’s posting did not incite them to storm the Executive Yuan.
Video footage shows Wei speaking to protesters on a microphone during the siege, but the court ruled that his presence at the site does not prove that he broke into the complex and damaged property.
Wei said in a statement yesterday that he did not mastermind the occupation of the Executive Yuan.
“I arrived in Taipei from Hsinchu City by bus at about 8pm and was preparing to go back to the Legislative Yuan sit-in, but upon learning on Facebook that the Executive Yuan had been occupied by students, I decided to go to the Executive Yuan and arrived there after 8pm,” the statement said.
Wei said he asked the other students if he could him help lead the protest, while urging the protesters to remain calm and not break into any offices.
Turning to Premier Jiang Yi-huah’s (江宜樺) remarks that police only “carried protesters away or tapped them on the shoulder and asked them to leave,” Wei said he saw officers attack protesters with sticks and shields.
“Any bloodshed that took place during the violent eviction must be taken up with the officer in charge of the operation and with President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九),” he added.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods