Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday said that President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is free to “bring it on,” after the Taipei City Police Department opened an investigation against him for allegedly contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) and the Criminal Code in connection with an incident on Saturday last week.
TPP supporters clashed with police during a rally that marked the one-year anniversary of a sweeping raid by Taipei prosecutors on former TPP chairman and Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲).
Huang said the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had previously called for the law to be abolished, but was now using it as a tool of oppression.
Photo: CNA
If the DPP, Lai and Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) think that it can silence the opposition by abusing the legal system, “they are wrong,” Huang said, adding that opposition voices would only grow louder.
Presidential Office spokeswoman Karen Kuo (郭雅慧) said that although there had been discussions of the possibility of amending the act, the law would not be changed to allow people attending a rally to “attack the police.”
TPP spokeswoman Wu Yi-hsuan (吳怡萱) hit back, saying that Kuo’s allegations that police were attacked have been disputed by some police officers.
Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said that the police were bound by law to do their duty to report the incident.
However, the crux of the issue is that Ko has been detained for a year, which has given rise to rumors that the government is trying to pressure him into giving testimony, Chiang added.
He said it was hard to believe that the former chairman of the third-largest political party in the nation, or in any democratic country, could be detained for so long, and that Taiwanese feel this could happen to them as well.
Additional reporting by Kan Meng-lin, Tsai Kai-heng
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