A plan by the Ministry of the Interior to allow Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member and Nantou County Commissioner Lee Chao-ching (李朝卿) to return to his post after being released from detention on bail sparked strong protests by Formosa Incident victims, who called on social activists to “seize” the KMT headquarters in Taipei and the Nantou County Government building.
Lee was indicted by the Nantou County District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of receiving kickbacks from almost every bid for a county government project since taking office in 2008. He was allegedly involved in more than 117 bribery cases and was detained in November last year, but released on bail on Tuesday.
Chi Wan-sheng (紀萬生), a former editor at Formosa Magazine, said he had launched the event in the hopes of bypassing all political parties, adding that he had also contacted Shih Ming-teh (施明德), the leader of the the Red Shirt protests in 2008 against then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and hoped to work together.
Chi said that he hoped the protest would continue until Lee steps down as commissioner.
Chi added that allowing Lee to resume office would be shameful and called on social activists across the nation and Nantou County residents to “take over” the KMT headquarters in Taipei and also the Nantou County Government building.
The ex-editor also said that he was trying to put together an organization called the “Hu Sheng” (護生) group. Chi said that the name of the organization came from the Chinese words for safeguarding, weihu (維護), and shengming (生命), meaning “life.”
Chi added that because Nantou County’s Renai Village (仁愛) and Sinyi Village (信義) would suffer the most if Lee were to resume his office, he invite the Aboriginal residents of the two villages to take part in his planned event.
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