A student protest at a Taipei high school yesterday during which students cut power and hung banners ended in controversy when school officials called in the police.
The Affiliated Senior-High School of National Taiwan Normal University was celebrating its 70th anniversary yesterday morning when students critical of the administration cut power to the stage.
Protesters then lowered two white banners over the stage that read in Chinese: “Although the administration runs amok, the school’s soul will never be destroyed.”
Photo courtesy of a reader
A student told reporters that protesters were upset to see police officers entering the campus and said that students had been taken away by police.
The school said it had called the police after school property was damaged and that students were only questioned in the presence of their parents.
Police did not remove any students from school grounds, the school said.
Officers were called in out of concern for school safety after a lock on a power room was found to have been changed, leaving staff unable to get in, school secretary Chen Ling-ling (陳玲玲) said.
School officials were concerned that people might have locked themselves in the room, so police first entered it to gather evidence, Chen said
The school discovered the connection only after two students descending from the roof over the stage went to the school’s military instructor and confessed, she added.
“At first we did not suspect that the damage to the power room door had anything to do with the protesting students,” she said.
The police had questioned the two students at the scene, in the presence of their parents, Chen said, but they were allowed to rejoin the ceremony after questioning.
Police officers at the Daan Precinct confirmed the school’s comments and said no students were arrested or taken into custody.
Officers informed the school and students of their rights and left, after the school said it would handle the issue itself and not press charges, the police said.
Deputy Minister of Education Tsai Ching-hwa (蔡清華) said the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Education had previously agreed that police would not enter school grounds unless there was an immediate threat to safety, or someone was caught committing a crime.
Tsai said although he was unaware of the exact circumstances surrounding yesterday’s protest, he felt the school should have been able to deal with the incident without calling the police, he said.
“Even if there was damage to school property, the school could have conducted an investigation afterward,” Tsai said, adding that the school would be asked to discuss its actions with the education ministry.
“This was not a dangerous or life-threatening situation. No violence was involved,” Humanist Education Foundation executive director Joanna Feng (馮喬蘭) said. “Students protesting is an example of disobedience. This was a protest within school grounds, so there was no reason to call the police.”
Calling the police legitimized the protest, since it showed the school administration did not listen to its students, and attempting to criminalize the students’ actions made the school administration look like an autocracy that did not welcome dissent, Feng said.
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