Dozens of former freeway toll collectors yesterday staged a protest outside the campaign headquarters of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文), demanding that he take responsibility, as they accused his campaign staff of attacking protesters on Thursday.
They held up banners accusing Lien of “caring only about the election, but not workers.”
They started the protest by performing a skit, with three protesters, wearing masks with the faces of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) and Lien, pouring red paint on fellow demonstrators.
Photo: Lu Heng-chien, Taipei Times
“The red paint symbolizes the blood of former toll collectors who were beaten by KMT staffers,” said Chen Hsiu-lien (陳秀蓮), a member of the self-help organization.
“We have gathered here to hold Lien responsible for the violence against former toll collectors yesterday [Thursday] when we protested outside a campaign rally attended by Ma, Yeh and Lien in Songshan District (松山),” Chen said.
Chen said that several members of the group were chased out and beaten by campaign staff wearing vests emblazoned with the KMT logo and slogans, while the police stood by and watched.
Wu Jing-ru (吳靜如), another protester, said that five members of the group were injured, with one suffering a concussion and had to be rushed to hospital.
“Lien should come out and apologize; otherwise, we will take further action before the elections on Nov. 29,” Wu said.
At a separate setting, Lien’s campaign spokesperson, Chien Chen-yu (錢震宇), said that the campaign office was unaware of the conflict that allegedly took place on Thursday.
“We took care of the rally within the venue and had no idea what was going on outside,” Chien said. “We respect the right of the former toll collectors to stage reasonable protests.”
Chien said that the problems facing the former toll collectors are not something that Lien could solve, “but we would be glad to forward their written petition to relevant government agencies if they have any.”
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching