The Taipei Police Department yesterday said there might be a shift in policy after Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) city councilors questioned its refusal to announce an official estimate of the number of people at a rally for Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) on Saturday.
The organizer of the rally on Taipei’s Ketagalan Boulevard to support Han’s possible presidential campaign said that it drew more than 400,000 people.
However, a local newspaper on Sunday reported that the Taipei Police Department’s estimate of the crowd size was only about 70,000, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) wrote on Facebook that the area could only accommodate about 75,000 people.
As the police department did not give an official estimate, politicians and pundits argued over how many people attended the rally and KMT city councilors yesterday asked whether there were political motivations behind the department not providing a number.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Dai Hsi-chin (戴錫欽) said that the department had given crowd estimates for large rallies on Ketagalan Boulevard in the past several years and asked why the department refused to provide a number for Saturday’s event.
Taipei Police Commissioner Chen Jia-chang (陳嘉昌) said that the department did not have an estimate of the crowd size, so he did not know where the number reported by the media outlet came from.
Dai asked Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) whether he or the National Police Agency ordered it not to release an estimate and how the department had deployed the right number of officers to maintain public safety if it had not assessed the crowd size.
Ko said he did not issue such an order and added that such issues were none of his business.
Neither Ko nor the agency had given him directives, Chen said, adding that he did not make an estimate because he thought it would not be necessary.
Estimating crowd sizes has nothing to do with maintaining public safety at a rally, Chen said.
The department often faces great pressure handling large rallies and people always have different opinions about its estimates, he said.
KMT Taipei City Councilor Chang Shi-gang (張斯綱) asked whether the department would stop providing crowd-size estimates given that there would be more large rallies with a presidential election next year.
It is unlikely that the department would not make estimates and even if it did and did not publish them, they would likely be leaked, Ko said.
The department would work toward not releasing estimates of crowd sizes at major rallies in Taipei, Chen said.
Tropical depression TD22, which was over waters south of the Ryukyu Islands, is likely to develop into a tropical storm by this morning and pose a significant threat to Taiwan next week, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. The depression is likely to strengthen into a tropical storm named Krathon as it moves south and then veers north toward waters off Taiwan’s eastern coast, CWA forecaster Hsu Chung-yi (徐仲毅) said. Given the favorable environmental conditions for its development, TD22’s intensity would reach at least typhoon levels, Hsu said. As of 2pm yesterday, the tropical depression was about 610km east-southeast of Taiwan proper’s
Four factors led to the declaration of a typhoon day and the cancelation of classes yesterday, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said. Work and classes were canceled across Taiwan yesterday as Typhoon Krathon was forecast to make landfall in the southern part of the country. However, northern Taiwan had only heavy winds during the day and rain in the evening, leading some to criticize the cancelation. Speaking at a Taipei City Council meeting yesterday, Chiang said the decision was made due to the possibility of landslides and other problems in mountainous areas, the need to avoid a potentially dangerous commute for those
RESTRICTIONS: All food items imported from the five prefectures must be accompanied by radiation and origin certificates, and undergo batch-by-batch inspection The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday announced that almost all produce from five Japanese prefectures affected by the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant disaster would now be allowed into Taiwan. The five are Fukushima, Gunma, Chiba, Ibaraki and Tochigi. The only items that would still be blocked from being imported into the nation are those that are still banned from being circulated in Japan, the FDA added. With the removal of the ban, items including mushrooms, the meat of wild birds and other wild animals, and koshiabura” (foraged vegetables) would now be permitted to enter Taiwan, along with the other
A new tropical storm is expected to form by early tomorrow morning, potentially developing into a medium-strength typhoon that is to affect Taiwan through Wednesday next week, the Central Weather Administration said today. There are currently two tropical systems circulating to the east of Taiwan, agency forecaster Hsu Chung-yi (徐仲毅) said. The one currently north of Guam developed into Tropical Storm Gebi this afternoon and is expected to veer toward Japan without affecting Taiwan, Hsu said. Another tropical depression is 600km from the east coast and is likely to develp into the named storm Krathon either late tonight or early tomorrow, he said. This
RSS