This year’s Autumn Struggle march is to address “fake transitional justice,” an alliance of labor and civic groups said yesterday, saying President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) had failed to push for comprehensive progressive reforms.
About 20 people from an array of labor, environmental and human rights groups gathered along Ketagalan Boulevard for a “pre-protest,” shouting slogans promising to “poke holes” in “fake transitional justice,” as they announced plans to stage a protest march on Sunday, which is to end in front of the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) national headquarters.
The Autumn Struggle march is an annual rally of labor groups that began in 1988.
Photo: CNA
“Last year we predicted that the DPP would quickly tilt toward capital interests and corporations, and unfortunately they have pushed through a variety of policies and bills that are against the interests of the public,” march spokesman Kuo Yao-chung (郭耀中) said.
Controversy over proposed cuts to national holidays were mentioned by speakers from several groups, with many protesters also expressing disappointment in what they said was the government’s alleged failure to take decisive action to effect change.
“The government should shoulder its responsibility to push for the reform of society as a whole,” Kuo said. “While the DPP has passed a variety of laws, they are mainly focused on proportionally small issues, with no intention of transforming society as a whole.”
Taiwan International Workers’ Association member Hsu Wei-tung (許惟棟) said a reform eliminating requirements that foreign workers have to leave the nation before renewing work permits was motivated by a desire to benefit employers.
“The purpose behind the bill was not to protect the rights of migrant workers, but rather to reduce the ‘empty window period’ faced by employers,” he said, while criticizing the DPP’s focus on passing “transitional justice” reforms aimed at illicit party assets in this year’s first legislative session.
“What transitional justice can we really talk about when foreign migrant workers do not even have the right to switch employers and foreign caregivers are not protected by the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法),” he said.
“While Tsai’s administration has pushed for transitional justice since taking office, we feel that it has continued many of the institutions and development-focused thinking of the Martial Law era,” said group speaker Kao Chen-yi (高蓁誼), citing continued forced relocations and land appropriations.
“Our demand in June was for a comprehensive reconsideration of laws enabling forced relocations, but the DPP has only proposed amendments to individual laws,” she said.
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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