The Taiwan High Court yesterday ruled that Lee Cheng-lung (李承龍) and three other China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP) members must pay NT$220,000 in damages to the Sun Yat-sen Elementary School for smashing two 100-year-old guardian “lion-dog” statues in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投) in May 2017.
Lee had told the court that the quartet’s actions were politically motivated by their antagonism toward Japan’s colonial rule of Taiwan, therefore considered protected actions under the principle of free speech.
The judges rejected his argument.
They found Lee, Chiu Chin-wei (邱晉芛), Wang Chi-pin (王啟鑌) and Lu Cheng-yuan (呂承遠) guilty of destruction of public or private property by using a sledgehammer and other tools to damage the statues in front of the school on Chuanyuan Road.
The vandalism outraged local residents, who consider the statues cultural treasures, and was also criticized by historic societies working to promote tourism in Beitou by protecting the district’s Japanese-era landscape and architecture.
Staff and students at the school were shocked by the destruction of the cultural and historic artifacts, which led school authorities to file a civil suit against the four.
After the Taiwan High Court in October last year upheld the four’s convictions in a criminal case stemming from the vandalism, Lee and Chiu were sentenced to four months in prison, while Wang and Lu were given terms of 70 and 50 days respectively.
The sentences were eligible to be commuted to fines.
Lee, who served one term as Taipei City councilor for the New Party in the 1990s, joined the CUPP in 2005.
He and other CUPP members have vowed to destroy all cultural items and historical materials from the Japanese colonial era.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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