Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday condemned Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers for occupying the legislative chamber for about 19 hours.
More than 20 KMT lawmakers on Sunday afternoon stormed into the legislative chamber and blocked the doors with chairs and chains, and spray painted the sentence “No endorsement for political crony Control Yuan nominees” on a wall inside the chamber.
They demanded that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) withdraw her nomination of former Presidential Office secretary-general Chen Chu (陳菊) as Control Yuan president.
The occupation lasted until about noon yesterday, when DPP lawmakers entered the legislative chamber.
“A mature opposition party should present its platform on particular issues in the legislature and then work within legal means under the legislature’s rules for the party to express the viewpoints in the accorded session for deliberation,” the DPP headquarters said in a statement.
“It is regretful that the KMT still cannot disengage itself from its old habits of the one-party authoritarian rule, and undertakes such violent actions to occupy the podium of the main chamber and proper legislative procedure,” it said.
“We hope KMT members can learn to act with sense and reason, as it should be for an opposition party in a democratic nation,” it added.
“Forty years ago, the KMT indicted Chen with a death sentence; now the KMT continues to try to humiliate and boycott her,” DPP deputy secretary-general Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) wrote on social media yesterday.
Lin was referring to the Kaohsiung Incident of 1979, when pro-democracy advocates held a rally to mark International Human Rights Day in Kaohsiung on Dec. 10 in defiance of the then-KMT one-party rule. Police and military units violently cracked down on the march.
Chen, along with several leaders who later became DPP founders, were indicted on sedition charges, which were punishable by death. However, mainly due to pressure from the US, they mostly received 12-year terms.
The incident has been regarded as a watershed event for Taiwan’s democratization movement.
Lin said he is certain that Chen can fulfill the responsibilities of Control Yuan president while doubling as the head of the newly established National Human Rights Commission, because she had suffered under KMT rule, and continued to fight for human rights and democracy in Taiwan through the decades.
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