Escorted by hundreds of supporters, labor rights activists Mao Chen-fei (毛振飛) and Lin Tzu-wen (林子文) walked to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday to begin their prison terms, with both saying they feel honored to be imprisoned over demonstrating for labor rights.
The supporters held up banners and flags as they departed from Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, heading over to an annex office of the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office about 1km away.
Their departure was accompanied by firecrackers and fireworks as the crowd chanted: “Honored to go to jail, no regret at all.”
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
“I feel honored to go to jail for speaking out against injustice in this society,” Lin, a long-time labor activist, told the crowd before the parade started. “We didn’t commit any crime, we’re just being repressed by the state.”
Mao, chairman of the Taoyuan Confederation of Trade Unions (TCTU), said that while he also feels honored to be jailed, he does regret one thing.
“I regret that I’ve only got 20 days, while Lin’s got 50 days. Whenever I think about it, I feel ashamed for getting such a short jail term,” Mao said. “Going to prison is nothing to be afraid of, and if we fear nothing, the government will be afraid of us. This is why President Ma Ying-jeou [馬英九] is now hiding from us.”
Lin was sentenced to 50 days in prison for engaging in clashes with police during a protest the National Alliance for Workers of Closed Factories (NAWCF) staged on Ketagalan Boulevard, while Mao was sentenced to 20 days in prison over an egg-hurling protest the NAWCF also staged in front of the Presidential Office last year.
At the protest, when police asked the crowd to stop hurling eggs at them, Mao told the crowd to continue and said he would take full responsibility.
The NAWCF is made up of hundreds of workers in their 60s or 70s who were laid off nearly 20 years ago. When their former employers would not pay them the severance packages and pensions they were owed, the Council of Labor Affairs offered them loans and promised that it would ask their former employers to repay the loans, rather than making the workers repay them.
However, two years ago, the council filed a NT$20 million (US$680,000) lawsuit against the laid-off workers, urging them to repay their loans, triggering waves of protests by the workers and their supporters.
“When I get out of the jail, I will return to the streets, because I cannot sit and do nothing when I see a small group of people benefiting at the expense of the public and workers,” Mao said.
Yao Kuang-chu (姚光祖), a younger member of the TCTU, vowed to carry on the job while the two leaders are in jail.
“These people are too old to go to jail. Shouldn’t it be time for us, the younger generation, to go to jail?” Yao asked, and received a firm “yes” from the crowd. “We are ready to make the government pay more for what they did wrong.”
Firecrackers and fireworks were again let off after the parade arrived outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, but many people were in tears when Mao and Lin walked into the office.
Chen Hsiu-lien (陳秀蓮), a spokeswoman for the NAWCF, urged the crowd to take part in another protest outside the upcoming Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) National Congress in Greater Taichung on Nov. 10.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS