A trial opened at the Taipei District Court yesterday for Sunflower movement activists, most of whom pleaded not guilty by asserting their right to protest against a government that was unresponsive to people’s opposition to the cross-strait service trade agreement.
Leading figures in the movement attended the court hearing, including students Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), Dennis Wei (魏揚), Lai Ping-yu (賴品妤) and academic Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌).
Lin pleaded not guilty, saying: “I believe society will resolutely defend this movement and its participants. History will ultimately provide the judgement that we are not guilty. Even if the justice system hands down guilty verdicts, that would only prove that we must continue with more vigorous protest actions.”
Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
Lin said that he does not agree the with the judiciary’s decision to separate the charged between the March 18 occupation of the main chamber of the Legislative Yuan and the March 23 action to occupy the Executive Yuan compound.
“The judiciary clearly overlooked the interconnecting links between these two actions. It was the government’s ploy to deny the legitimacy of Executive Yuan occupation action by isolating it into a separate case,” Lin said.
Huang admitted that he participated in occupying the legislature, but denied any wrongdoing.
“It is [President] Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his government who are guilty of criminal acts… When we occupied the legislature, it was to save the core values of Taiwan’s democracy. We were fighting against the Ma administration’s bad governance and Ma’s perversion of the Constitution,” Huang said.
“I have the courage to bear the legal consequence of my action, but I know those who are truly guilty are Ma and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chang Ching-chung (張慶忠), who rammed through the trade pact in merely 30 seconds. The people who were forced to save themselves are not guilty. It is Ma and his government who are guilty,” he said.
Chen Wei-ting told the court that if it was not for the Sunflower movement last year, then the cross-strait service trade agreement would be passed, and by now Taiwan might be under China’s political control.
“Many industries, such as publishing, commercial advertising, certain telecommunication fields, tourism, public transportation and other sectors would be bought up and operated by Chinese conglomerates. Many books written about the Sunflower movement would not be published. Chinese companies would also control the media by now,” Chen said.
Wei said the Sunflower movement was ignited because the legislature was no longer responsive to the wishes and aspirations of the people, and therefore citizens have the right to exercise their power to oversee the checks and balances on the government’s actions.
Wei said that he and fellow activists fought to prevent the approval of the cross-strait service trade pact, because the government was sacrificing the younger generation’s future to allow the pro-China business conglomerates to reap even more profits.
“In my role during the protests, I was not inciting unlawful acts, but encouraging people to stand up and join in the fight to resist the government’s criminal actions. I did that because I had no other choice,” Wei said.
State prosecutors last month filed charges against 119 activists for their roles during the Sunflower movement from March 18 to April 10 last year.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS