In a recent statement, Sunrise Records rebutted Taipei City police’s explanations of an alleged violation of civil liberties earlier this month and accused Beitou Precinct Chief Lee Han-ching (李漢卿) of lying.
On the night of Nov. 4, hundreds of people staged an anti-China demonstration outside the Ambassador Hotel in Taipei, where Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) was attending a dinner banquet hosted by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) honorary chairman Lien Chan (連戰). Part of the protesting crowd spilled over to the sidewalk in front of Sunrise Records.
Some of the protesters started dancing to music from an album titled Songs of Taiwan, which was being played in the store. All of a sudden, Lee, followed by several other police officers, entered the store. The music was soon turned off and the store’s door closed halfway.
The crowd started to protest and during the standoff CD shelves and the roll-up door were broken, while store manager Chang Pi (張碧) was slightly injured.
Lee told Taipei City councilors at the City Council on Monday that he had respectfully asked the store to turn the volume down after receiving a noise complaint.
As the crowd, believing police had turned off the music, started pouring into the store, “the owner tried to close the door because they felt threatened,” Lee said.
A statement by the store, however, told a different story.
“It was not us, it was the police officers who felt threatened and wanted to close the door that night,” it said.
"By forcing the door close, police broke the roll-up door and CD shelves that were in the way," the statement said.
The store owners, who paid for the repairs, said they would have dropped the matter had it not been for Lee's comments to the effect that it was the store that had wanted the door closed and that police had not done anything wrong.
"We hoped Lee would be quiet, because that would mean he still knows what is right and wrong," it said. "But instead, Lee, with the government behind him, refuses to admit his faults and lied."
The only way to make things right at this point, the statement said, is for an investigation to be held and for police officers who abused their powers to apologize and be reprimanded accordingly.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS