Several groups, including opponents of pension reform, yesterday staged protests outside the Taipei Municipal Stadium during the Summer Universiade opening ceremony.
Hundreds of pensioners rallied at Meiren Park before setting out on a march around the barricaded stadium, during which they shouted slogans demanding that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) step down.
Tainan Police Fraternity members blasted air horns near an entrance just as people started arriving at the stadium. They broke through a police line to march down Beining Road in an attempt to approach the venue.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
“We are not the ones who blocked this off, you are,” fraternity executive secretary Chen Ching-tsung (陳金宗) said after police blocked the marchers.
Protestors said they wanted to “cheer for the Republic of China team” and scuffled with police before joining other groups in a march around the cordoned-off security zone.
Police erected barriers along both sides of Dunhua, Bade and Nanjing roads.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
“We are not interfering with the event site — there should not be anything wrong with protesting outside,” said Taiwan Veteran Rights Protection Association president Huang Cheng-chung (黃正忠), one of the protest organizers, adding that organizers wanted to attract Tsai’s attention.
“We want to make sure President Tsai does not feel good because she caused us a lot of suffering,” Taiwan Education Retirees Association director Alice Wu (吳錦秀) said, referring to pension cuts passed in June. “Many foreigners have come here and we want them to know how the government treats its soldiers, teachers and civil servants.”
Pensioners were not the only group staging protests outside the stadium.
A group of Tibetans draped in their national flags protested “illegal Chinese expansion” meters away from Chinese Unification Promotion Party members waving the Chinese flag.
Green-and-white symbolic “Taiwan” flags were a common sight outside the stadium, as members of the pro-independence Taiwan Radical Wings Party rallied to promote their cause.
Several thousand of the flags were printed using donations from Taiwanese living in the US, the party’s publicity and public opinion department deputy directory Joyce Lin (林春妙) said.
While the right to carry the flags into the venue caused contention after the Taipei City Government banned political materials other than the Republic of China flag, enforcement was lax with numerous people carrying the flags past police officers and into the stadium, while one woman was required to discard her flag.
The Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times) yesterday reported that Taipei police decided it would not tolerate any such flags as they contain explicitly political messages such as “Taiwan is not the Republic of China.”
The Thai government on Friday announced that Taiwanese would be allowed to stay in the country for up to 60 days per entry, under the Southeast Asian country’s visa-free program starting from today. Taiwan is among 93 countries included in the Thai visa-waiver program, which has been expanded from 57 countries, with the visa-exempt entry extended from 30 to 60 days. After taking office last year, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has vowed to grant more visa waivers to foreign travelers as part of efforts to stimulate tourism. The expanded visa-waiver program was on Friday signed by Thai Minister of the Interior Anutin
BAIL APPEALS: The former vice premier was ordered to be held incommunicado despite twice being granted bail and paying a total of NT$12 million in bond The Taoyuan District Court yesterday ordered the detention of former vice premier Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦), who is being investigated for alleged corruption while serving as Taoyuan mayor from December 2014 to December 2022, and that he be held incommunicado. The court made the ruling during a bail hearing after prosecutors appealed its bail ruling twice. Cheng on Saturday was released after posting bail of NT$5 million (US$153,818). However, after prosecutors lodged an appeal, the High Court on Monday revoked the original ruling and ordered the Taoyuan District Court to hold another bail hearing. On Tuesday, the district court granted bail to Cheng a second
PEACE AND SECURITY: China’s military ambitions present ‘the greatest strategic challenge to Japan and the world, Japan’s annual defense white paper said yesterday Japan yesterday warned that China risked escalating tensions with Taiwan with an increase in military exercises that appeared aimed in part at readying Beijing’s forces for a possible invasion. Japan’s annual assessment of security threats, including those posed by China, North Korea and Russia, comes as Taiwan closely monitors Chinese People’s Liberation Army air and sea exercises, including one with the Shandong aircraft carrier in the Pacific Ocean. The drills are the latest in a series including maneuvers in the Taiwan Strait last year that a senior US general said would be key to any invasion. “Because of that increase in military activity,
HAN KUANG: The exercises, which are to run from July 22 to 26, will feature unscripted war games and a decentralized command and control structure, military officers said The armed forces would for the first time test new rules of engagement (ROE) at this month’s annual Han Kuang exercises, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said yesterday. The exercises, which are to run from July 22 to 26, will feature unscripted war games, and a decentralized command and control structure, military officers told a news conference in Taipei. ROE cards would be issued to select combat troops to test their ability to function without tight control, they said. The most recent edition of the rules was published last year, they said. One of the cards’ two templates identifies enemy targets that soldiers