Fri, Dec 26, 2014 page3

• Protests mark Taipei mayor’s swearing-in ceremony

  • By Lii Wen, Stacy Hsu and Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporters
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  Several demonstrations took place outside Taipei City Hall yesterday as the swearing-in ceremony of Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) took place inside.

  The small clearing outside the front entrance of the building was packed with people, as supporters of the new mayor jostled with groups of protesters who came to air their grievances, while police officers watched between the groups.

  Some protesters dispersed among the crowd carried large banners, one more than two stories high, and another a large poster hanging on a man’s chest.

  

  Members of civic organizations gather outside Taipei City Hall yesterday to express their hopes for the new Taipei City Government as former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin handed over the reigns of the city to Mayor Ko Wen-je.

  Photo: Yu Pei-ju, Taipei Times

  One of the larger groups of protesters was a group of parents and activists from the Alliance on Obligatory Education, who expressed their concern regarding recent speculation that Director of Education Tang Chih-ming (湯志明) planned to make changes to next year’s high-school admittance mechanism.

  The group demanded that the Ko administration continue the education policies set by former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), saying that they would engage in further protests if Ko were to “abruptly” change high-school admittance rules.

  The protest came amid a feud between the Taipei Department of Education and the Ministry of Education, in which Taipei refuses to use the ministry’s less precise tie-breaking system of “marks (標示),” and insists on using its own system of “rulers (量尺).”

  Earlier in the morning, the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COWAS) held a protest outside the swearing-in ceremony as part of its campaign to protect the Wenmeng Building (文萌樓), a historic site and symbol of the struggle against Taipei’s abolition of legalized prostitution during the 1990s.

  The privately owned building, which houses the collective, faces an uncertain fate, with critics saying that its current owner lacks commitment toward preserving the site.

  While Ko has suggested that the historic building should be protected through a public urban renewal project, COWAS members called on the city government to expropriate the building as public property to keep it from the hands of private developers.

  Separately, the People Are The Boss group and the Taiwan Radical Nurses Union staged a demonstration in front of the hall, urging Ko and city officials to make known their stance on the Taipei Wellness Clinic and Resort project.

  Located next to Xinbeitou MRT Station, the 12-story complex on the former site of Yang Ming Hospital’s Beitou District (北投) outpatient clinic was constructed by the Taipei City Government using nearly NT$900 million (US$28.3 million) from its medical fund. It was opened on Sunday.

  “The medical fund is earmarked for efforts to increase the quality of medical care at the city’s medical institutions, but former mayor Hau blatantly violated this principle and squandered the fund on a tourism-oriented wellness resort,” the groups said.

  The groups said operations were contracted to Taipei Veterans General Hospital Health Management Consulting Corp for 15 years for a meager royalty of NT$300 million.

  “[The city government] had apparently sought to benefit a specific corporation, yet the Control Yuan concluded its investigation report with a simple statement that the department of health had agreed to make necessary improvements and changes,” the two groups said.

  When Ko accompanied Hau out of the hall following the inauguration, a member of the Alliance on Obligatory Education moved through the crowd to speak to Ko face-to-face, asking the new mayor to take a petition.

  At first, Ko’s assistants tried to take the petition on behalf of the mayor, but the protester refused, saying: “I want Mayor Ko to personally accept the petition.”

  After a few seconds, Ko took the petition, without saying anything until the woman left.

  “This is normal, protests happen almost every day,” Ko told reporters when asked to comment on the incident. “This is why I’m here, I’m here to solve problems for people.”
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