With a student protest occupying the Ministry of Education’s forecourt entering its 60th hour as of noon yesterday, the discipline and persistence demonstrated by protestors at the site so far have led to members of the public describing it as a “reprise” of the Sunflower movement in March and April last year.
One memorable aspect of last year’s Sunflower movement, in which student protesters’ occupied the Legislative Yuan’s main chamber for almost 23 days in protest against the government’s handling of a cross-strait service trade agreement, was the way in which protesters organized groups to clean up trash and maintained order.
Hundreds of student protesters broke through a police barricade in front of the ministry’s compound in the early hours of Friday morning, demanding that the ministry withdraw changes to high-school curriculum guidelines.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
After entering the ministry compound, the students sat at the forecourt of the ministry building, exchanging ideas about the guideline alterations throughout the day and sleeping on the ground at night, protected by those who volunteered to take shifts standing guard.
Clumps of white roses from those who mourned student activist Dai Lin (林冠華) — who allegedly took his own life on Thursday to raise public awareness about the government’s indifference toward students’ appeals — covered barricades nearby.
A main stage for speeches has been set up, along with booths offering medical treatment, media liaisons and general services.
Protesters distributed food and bottled water they had prepared for their fellow demonstrators, while volunteers at a medical station on Zhongshan S Road, in front of the ministry, took care of those suffering from heatstroke.
Some demonstrators gave out flyers to passers-by, hoping to increase public awareness of their cause.
A female student at Hsinchu County’s Hulin Junior High School, surnamed Wan (萬), said she had slept outside the ministry building to express solidarity with other student protesters.
“I would like to express my gratitude to the high-school students for everything they have done,” she said.
Over the past two days, the protesters awoke at 7am for a group newspaper reading and discussion session, after which they vowed never to leave the compound unless the ministry withdraws the controversial curriculum guidelines.
Police on Saturday morning removed barbed wire and barricades. Later, some student protesters also performed a Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) version of Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables and a song by Hong Kong rock group Beyond, which was used as the theme of the Occupy Central movement in Hong Kong last year.
Perimeters were once again set up by nightfall, but the demonstrators’ resolve that the ministry relinquish the altered guidelines seemed to grow stronger as the sit-in progressed, as students took turns delivering speeches onstage and put the white roses back on the barricades.
A woman surnamed Chu (朱) said that before the students’ protest over the curriculum issue, her mother and grandfather had been Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) stalwarts, adding that it was not until they learned about the government’s alleged tampering with Taiwanese history that they found out how little they actually knew about Taiwan.
“I hope younger generations never have to study textbooks indoctrinating outdated ideas,” she said.
Additional reporting by Chen En-hui and Chien Li-chung
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,