Wearing yellow raincoats in drizzling weather, several hundred demonstrators from two groups — former Hualon Corp workers and former freeway toll collectors — and their supporters staged a joint demonstration outside Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) headquarters in Taipei yesterday.
More than 100 police officers blocked access to the building, standing behind barricades and shields, while President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who doubles as KMT chairman, hosted a KMT Central Standing Committee meeting inside.
“[The government] only cares about the elections — it does not take care of workers,” the protesters shouted as they pushed forward against the police, leading to short, violent scuffles.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Representatives from the groups accused the Ma administration of inaction over the workers’ plights, saying that it is ignoring workers’ welfare and focusing on the upcoming nine-in-one elections.
The former Hualon workers want the government to help them obtain unpaid pensions from the bankrupt textiles manufacturer, while the former toll collectors are demanding severance packages as well as assistance finding new jobs, since their former jobs disappeared after the nation launched a distance-based electronic toll collection system in January and removed all tollbooths.
At one point during the rally, a stench filled the air as protesters hurled rotten eggs at police, hitting several officers as well as other demonstrators.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Labor activist Wu Jing-ru (吳靜如) accused Minister of Transportation and Communications Yeh Kuang-shih (葉匡時) of neglecting his responsibilities by not showing up to a committee meeting evaluating the Freeway Construction and Management Fund at the Legislative Yuan on Monday.
“We see this as a sign that the minister does not place any importance on providing a solution for the toll collectors at all,” Wu said.
Despite the protests, the KMT committee meeting was unaffected. Ma offered flowers to a bronze statue of KMT founder Sun Yat-sen (孫逸仙) before the meeting to mark the former leader’s birthday.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
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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