On May 13, Yang Wei-chung (楊偉中) plodded through a crowd of livid students. The front doors of the Ministry of Education were barely visible behind a shifting flank of riot police and an iron gate. Yang stuck his foot in the gate's grill, intending to climb over the barrier. That's when police yanked him down and arrested him in front of an army of TV cameras.
"I've participated in many raucous protests -- in the KMT [Chinese Nationalist Party] era, no less -- but that was the first time I had such a run-in with the cops," Yang said.
Yang and a group of university students had applied for and received permission to deliver a petition to the ministry on May 13 calling on it to end tuition hikes, Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Lai Shin-yuan (賴幸媛) said.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
However, police blocked their way, apprehending petitioners who dared to exercise their right to approach the ministry with the petition, Yang said.
LAW CONDEMNED
Yang was back in the spotlight yesterday, along with Lai and several civic groups, protesting the Assembly and Parade Law (
Protesters from the Public Education Alliance, the Laborer Parent Union and other civic organizations assembled on the court's front steps, proclaiming Yang's innocence and slamming the "commercialization of education."
"A-bian [President Chen Shui-bian's (
"If we add up all the money that was allegedly illicitly used by A-bian and his associates and family, we can arrive at a figure of about NT$870 million [US$27 million]," Hsu said. That's enough to send 1,450 disadvantaged students to a private university for four years, or 2,900 disadvantaged students to a public university for four years."
MINISTRY ATTACKED
Liu Hui-min (
"The Ministry of Education has given up on investing in higher education," Yang said.
Lin Bo-i (林柏儀), a law student at Taiwan National University and a member of the Public Education Alliance, agreed that the ministry wasn't doing enough to reform tertiary institutions, adding that rising tuition fees had been an issue since a flawed higher education policy was implemented in 1990.
"To meet demand from the country's students seeking a university education, the ministry upgraded many vocational schools to the status of private universities in 1990. But it didn't try to ensure that such newly designated universities were on a par with what private universities are supposed to offer. The influx of university students nationwide at that point meant less financial assistance per student," Lin said.
TUITION HIKES DEFENDED
An official in the ministry's Department of Higher Education challenged the notion that the ministry had stopped investing in higher education.
The official said rising educational costs were the result of universities applying to the ministry, according to strict procedures, to raise tuition.
"Even with rising tuition, the cost of higher education in Taiwan is still much lower than that in Singapore, Japan and South Korea, not to mention less developed countries in the region," the official said on the condition of anonymity.
As for the Assembly and Parade Law, Lai called the law "evil" and said she would propose to abolish it in the legislature next month. She also accused police in Taipei of abusing the law to suppress the people's rights of assembly and free speech.
"Yang was arrested illegally as he had applied to deliver a petition to the Ministry of Education and to protest there," Lai said.
ASSEMBLY LAW
Yesterday's protesters, in addition to demanding that university tuition fees not be raised again, called on the legislature and the Ministry of the Interior to scrap the Assembly and Parade Law.
"There are plenty of other laws that state what protesters can and cannot do, so public safety and order would not be endangered if the Assembly and Parade Law were abolished," Lin said.
Meanwhile, Taipei City Police Department's Zhongzheng First Police District Deputy Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧), who is in charge of Yang's case, told the Taipei Times yesterday that police believe Yang's action violated ordinances pertaining to the interference of public functions, so they decided to charge him and he was indicted by prosecutors.
Fang said now it was up to the Taipei District Court to decide whether Yang had violated the law.
He said police were responsible for carrying out the law, and if social groups considered the law inappropriate for a democracy, they should ask for it to be amended.
Ministry of the Interior spokeswoman Patricia Huang (
Additional reporting by Rich Chang
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