Sunflower activists plead not guilty at trial opening

Thu, Mar 26, 2015 page1

Sunflower activists plead not guilty at trial opening
- By Jason Pan / Staff reporter
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.”

Student leaders Chen Wei-ting, right, and Dennis Wei, second right, of the Sunflower movement yesterday talk to reporters outside the Taipei District Court about the lawsuits against student protesters who participated in the occupation of the Executive Yuan last year.

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.
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