The National Taiwan University (NTU) Students’ Association yesterday called on the university administration to back freedom of speech in all cases, instead of only supporting Su Hung-dah (蘇宏達), an NTU professor of political science who has been accused of spreading misinformation.
In a video postsed to Facebook in November 2018, Su accused the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) of trying to launch a “cultural revolution” to exterminate the National Palace Museum.
In the video, Su said that former National Palace Museum director Chen Chi-nan (陳其南) collaborated with the DPP on a policy to move the museum’s collection.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
The museum has said that Su’s remarks were false.
He received a notice from the Nangang Precinct (南港) of the Taipei Police Department of an alleged breach of the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), Su wrote on Tuesday.
NTU on Thursday posted a statement on Facebook, expressing concern that the police were “infringing freedom of speech” and called on authorities to observe Article 11 of the Constitution.
The student association submitted a proposal to a meeting of university administrators, calling on NTU to retract its statement.
NTU did not issue the statement to support all expressions of opinion among students and faculty, the association said.
The proposal was not adopted, with attendees casting 79 votes against it and 30 for, with one blank vote.
NTU president Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) said that the institute’s statement represents its responsibility to protect the freedom of speech of faculty and students, rather than reflecting whether it agreed with Su’s comments.
The university’s administration seems to be inconsistent when it handles cases involving people linked to different political parties, NTU Graduate Students’ Association chairman Wang Yu-chun (王昱鈞) said.
For example, it did not support a fundraising activity for a memorial site for late democracy activist Chen Wen-chen (陳文成) due to political sensitivity, Wang said, adding that the university should have reasonable and consistent standards for similar cases.
The university would help with the memorial, as the project was approved at a meeting of NTU administrators, with the Chen Wen-chen Memorial Foundation to raise money, Kuan said, adding that it could help if a proposal is approved at a subsequent administrators’ meeting.
The Chen incident is about transitional justice, Students’ Association head Tu Chun-ching (涂峻清) said, adding that hopefully NTU would clarify its stance on Chen’s death.
Chen, who was born in 1950 and graduated from NTU, was an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University when he returned to Taiwan on May 20, 1981, to visit family. On July 2, 1981, he was questioned by the former Taiwan Garrison Command.
His body was discovered the next day on the NTU campus.
The then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government said that Chen committed suicide out of fear of being convicted over his involvement in pro-democracy movements.
His family and friends say he was murdered by the government.
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