Hundreds of activists yesterday staged a rally in Tainan, demanding that the government address air pollution in southern Taiwan and revoke major development projects, while calling on presidential and legislative candidates to support their proposals.
Impersonating Star Wars characters, protesters performed a skit saying: “The people awaken. May the force be with Yoda,” satirizing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), whose portrait on the cover of Time magazine in June was juxtaposed with a picture of Star Wars character Yoda by netizens.
A coalition of more than 30 environmental groups protested against political parties for prioritizing election campaigns over pollution issues in southern Taiwan, with protesters targeting the DPP.
Photo: Hung Jui-chin, Taipei Times
Activists asked candidates to endorse a combination of proposals, including stopping the expansion of the Southern Taiwan Science Park (南部科學園區) in Tainan and Kaohsiung, stopping the expansion of China Steel Corp and the state-run oil refiner CPC Corp, as well as ceasing development projects in Kaohsiung including an oil refinery, a yacht-building park, a landfill and Freeway National No. 7.
The coalition also requested that China Steel store raw materials in roofed facilities to reduce dust, while demanding the government conduct health risk assessments of science parks in Tainan and Kaohsiung and survey the geological structure of an active fault line in Kaohsiung to remove oil tanks and pipelines in earthquake-prone areas.
Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union director Charles Lee (李建畿) said southern Taiwan has seen the rapid development of heavy industries and suffered, as PM2.5 — fine particulate matter measuring 25 micrometers in diameter or smaller — levels in central and southern municipalities have been two times greater than the legal limit for two consecutive years.
“Protesters took to the street because they have to live under the threat of increasing cancer rates and mortality rates, which are much higher than the national average,” Lee said.
Coalition director Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said the group formulated a campaign pledge, but none of the presidential candidates have signed it and few DPP or Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidates have endorsed it.
Minor parties, such as the Green Party-Social Democratic Party Alliance, Radical Flank, New Power Party and Trees Party, were more responsive and willing to sign the pledge, Chen said.
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