A hunger striker protesting the Kaohsiung City Government’s demolition of a local community for an urban renewal project was hospitalized after fainting from dehydration on Sunday, fellow protesters said.
Residents Self-Rescue Association assistant Tseng Wei-tang (曾維堂) collapsed after a 33-hour hunger strike, and his place was immediately taken over by Yang Feng-kuang (楊豐光), said Lin Chih-yu (林致宇), who serves as spokesman for the association fighting for a reasonable resettlement of long-time residents near the Kaohsiung Fruit and Vegetable Market on Shiquan Road in the Sanmin District (三民).
The Kaohsiung Agriculture Bureau called on the protesting residents to be rational and stop their hunger strike, saying that over the past year numerous meetings have been held with residents, and only six households remain on the site.
The bureau has offered to relocate landowners and provide a year of rental subsidies to people forced to move.
The housing complex next to the market was demolished on Sept. 1, despite a last-minute standoff by unhappy residents who chained themselves to barricades and gas tanks
However, more than 20 members of the association said the city government “refused to talk” with them. They began a hunger strike on Saturday, sitting on coffins and vowing to protect their homes and their human rights.
The market relocation project has been delayed for decades, Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) has said, adding that she could have chosen to do nothing as her predecessors had, but, for the sake of the city’s development and public interest, she must finish the project to solve problems caused by flooding and traffic congestion and build a modern market in the area.
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