The removal by staff at the National Chengchi University of fliers listing names of people killed in the 228 Incident drew remarks from student activists yesterday.
“We demand that the school president, the chief of police and the head military training officer sincerely come forward to apologize for what happened on [Friday] afternoon. Before then, we will not accept any private benefits or meetings — nor will we take down any videos or fliers,” the National Chengchi University Wildfire Front (政大野火陣線) said in a statement.
The group said that school officials offered to reserve a bulletin board for their fliers if they took down online videos showing extended arguments with campus police.
Photo provided by National Chengchi University Wildfire Front
The videos show the university’s chief military training officer, Chang Hui-ling (張惠玲), and campus police officers tearing fliers off of campus bulletin boards, saying that students were “stirring up trouble” and threatening to force them off campus if they did not show their student identification cards.
In one video a campus officer waves one of the fliers and said it was against university rules because it was taped — not tacked — to the bulletin board.
The fliers listed the names and backgrounds of victims of the 228 Incident, which is commemorated today.
The 228 Incident refers to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) suppression of a civil uprising, which started on Feb. 27, 1947, marking the beginning of the White Terror era.
The conflict over posting the fliers on the school’s bulletin boards came after students on Friday plastered a sculpture of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) with fliers, sparking a reaction from campus police, who defended Chiang’s legacy in a shouting match shown in another video students posted online.
The sculpture was later covered with a black tarp and roped off.
National Chengchi University was quoted in the Chinese-language United Daily News as saying that while students did not have to apply to post fliers, fliers posted by the group were against university regulations, because they did not include the name of the posting group.
However, campus police over-reacted, based on the video posted by students, the school said, adding that they raised their voices “a little too loudly.”
“The school is backing the military training officer by saying that she did not tear down the fliers because of content. However, there were other fliers on the side which did not state the name of the posting group, which shows that the officer was selectively tearing down the 228 fliers,” said National Chengchi University Law Professor Liu Hung-en (劉宏恩).
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