Leading Sunflower movement figures and opposition legislators yesterday voiced their anger over the police crackdown during the occupation of the Executive Yuan in Taipei on the night of March 23 to the early hours of March 24 last year, saying that many of the victims seeking justice have been left out in the cold.
At the Legislative Yuan’s plenary session yesterday, Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Chou Ni-an (周倪安) questioned Premier Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) over the matter, accusing the government of turning a deaf ear to victims’ demands for justice to be served.
Chou, who sustained injuries during the incident on March 24 last year, said she was there to protect the students and experienced brutal treatment by the police.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“After I was knocked to the ground, four riot police used their shields and boots to kick and hit me repeatedly,” she said.
“We know that videos from police cameras can be used to identify students and protesters, as the government was able to indict them,” Chou said. “Why can the same footage not single out any police officers who beat people so viciously?”
Chou called on the government to come clean on that night’s crackdown and “end the cover-up,” accusing authorities of destroying evidence to prevent the prosecution of police officers.
The occupation of the Executive Yuan, led by student Dennis Wei (魏揚) and others, was a spinoff of the Sunflower movement that occupied the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber from March 18 to April 10 to protest the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement.
On Monday evening, dozens of students and activists took part in a silent procession around the Executive Yuan compound to mark the one-year anniversary of the bloody police crackdown. Led by youth activist group Black Island National Youth Front, the crowd hung handkerchiefs with bloody hand prints on the barbed-wire barricades.
Wei, a member of the group, said the images of riot police carrying batons and marching in locked steps toward the sit-in crowd often came back to haunt him.
“I will never forget what happened that night, especially not my friends bleeding from being beaten by police as they held me and cried out in pain,” said Wei, who is one of 119 Sunflower movement protesters who have been indicted.
“Over the past year, neither former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) nor former National Police Agency director-general Wang Cho-chiun (王卓鈞) have apologized for their roles in these acts of violence against the public,” he said.
He added that as the public commemorates the one-year anniversary of the Executive Yuan occupation, “we must point out these two as the main perpetrators of the violence and not, as government officials are doing now, blaming the protesters for their ‘irresponsible’ actions.”
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS