Hundreds of Malaysian students in Taiwan yesterday rallied in Liberty Square in Taipei yesterday — as Malaysian students in 25 cities around the world did — to demand free and clean elections and to protest the arrests of hundreds of pro--democracy demonstrators in Malaysia.
“A lot of Malaysians are not happy about politics in Malaysia, but they are not talking, because they think they would be better off remaining silent, but silence would not get us anywhere,” Cheng Xin Rou (鄭欣柔), a Malaysian student at National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, told the crowd in yellow, who reacted to her words with loud cheers and applause.
“We want fair and clean elections for a better democracy,” she said. “I’m not saying this because I am in Taiwan, I would have said the same thing and joined the protesters in Kuala Lumpur if I were in Malaysia at this moment. I will eventually go back to Malaysia, and I will take part in social movements there.”
Photo: Loa Iok-sin, Taipei Times
Cheng and the Malaysian students at the rally were upset because they believe elections are seriously manipulated by the ruling party — which has been in power since the independence of Malaysia in 1963 — and because of the arrests of hundreds of members and supporters of the Bersih movement that calls for clean elections.
All the demonstrators and their Taiwanese supporters wore yellow and brought yellow umbrellas or even bananas, because it was the color chosen by the Bersih movement in Malaysia when they printed their own T-shirts.
“The Malaysian government is arresting supporters of the Bersih movement; I wonder if the word bersih [Malay for ‘clean’] would be erased from the dictionary, and we would only be able to find the words ‘dirty’ and ‘not so dirty’ in the dictionary?” said Chan Kuang Ming (陳洸銘), a Malaysian student from National Chi Nan University and a co--organizer of the rally. “Does the government think that the people are so ignorant that we don’t know what tricks they are playing when the power goes off in the middle of the vote-counting, and when they sent in boxes of [stamped] ballots into poll stations?”
He said the protesters were not mobilized by the opposition, “we are Malaysian students who care about our own country, and coordinated among ourselves to organize this rally.”
Speaking about election irregularities, another co-organizer of the rally, Pauline Tan (陳俐杏), a student from NTU’s Department of Foreign Languages, said the government was using its power to create an election system that is favorable to them.
“For instance, 48 percent of all registered voters are ‘phantom voters,’ the media outlets are in the control of the government and the campaign period has been reduced from 48 days decades ago to eight days now,” Tan said.
Chang Teck Peng (莊迪澎), the founding editor of an independent online news outlet, Merdeka Review, said it was about time for Malaysia to change, because the ruling party has been in power since the country’s independence.
“Only the rotation of power could bring better life to the people,” he said.
Commenting on recent arrests of pro-democracy activists in Malaysia, Chang said it was actually a good sign.
“The government is making more efforts to crack down on the pro-democracy movement because they are in fear, they know well that public opinion is not on their side,” he said.
In addition to the Malaysians, representatives from several Taiwanese non-governmental organizations, including the Taiwan Association for Human Rights and Amnesty International (AI) Taiwan, also showed up in support.
“Democracy doesn’t just fall down from the sky, it’s the power of the people that can make a change,” AI Taiwan deputy secretary-general Yang Tsung-li (楊宗澧) said. “That’s how Taiwanese earned our democracy, and that’s what the people of Tunisia and Egypt did too. We Taiwanese will always stand with you Malaysians on your struggle for democracy.”
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
Temperatures in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店) climbed past 37°C yesterday, as the Central Weather Administration (CWA) issued heat alerts for 16 municipalities, warning the public of intense heat expected across Taiwan. The hottest location in Taiwan was in Sindian, where the mercury reached 37.5°C at about 2pm, according to CWA data. Taipei’s Shilin District (士林) recorded a temperature of 37.4°C at noon, Taitung County’s Jinfeng Township (金峰) at 12:50 pm logged a temperature of 37.4°C and Miaoli County’s Toufen Township (頭份) reached 36.7°C at 11:40am, the CWA said. The weather agency yesterday issued a yellow level information notice for Taipei, New
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
RSS