Taiwan Referendum Alliance convener Tsay Ting-kuei (蔡丁貴) yesterday criticized the police for fining him for violating the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) when he walked around outside the Presidential Office with a donation box and some supporters on Wednesday.
Tsay went to Zhongzheng First Precinct police station on Wednesday to pay the fines he had previously received for violating the Act. Tsay had received tickets totaling more than NT$800,000 because he has been conducting a sit-in demonstration against the Assembly and Parade Act outside the Legislative Yuan since October 2008.
Because Tsay found that he did not have enough money to pay the fines, he decided to walk around with a donation box to raise money.
PHOTO: LO PEI-DER, TAIPEI TIMES
Tsay and his supporters were stopped by the police when they approached the side gate of the Presidential Office. They refused to stop and continued to walk around. They received a warning from the police, who said that Tsay and his supporters were in violation of the Assembly and Parade Act and they were asked to “disband.”
“We were only a few people walking on the street trying to raise money, it was neither an assembly nor a parade,” Tsay told the Taipei Times.
“It’s my freedom to wear whatever I want and take whatever I want when I walk on the street — the police have violated my freedom,” he said.
He said while there were other people with him, police officers only surrounded him.
“Is there a law that says that Tsay Ting-kuei cannot walk around the Presidential Office?” he asked. “They could arrest me if I had tried to walk into the Presidential Office, but I was merely walking on the sidewalk outside. The police abused their power.”
Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Tsai Chi-hsun (蔡季勳) agreed with Tsay.
Tsai said what had happened to Tsay showed that the Assembly and Parade Act is ridiculous and unnecessary.
“What Tsay Ting-kuei did would not be considered a violation of the Assembly and Parade Act if he did it elsewhere. What he did was declared illegal because the Presidential Office is a ‘sensitive’ place,” Tsai said. “This shows that the Act gives police too much power to decide what constitutes a violation of the law.”
On the other hand, police said the way officers acted was legal and justified.
“[Tsay and his supporters] walked in group — though there was quite a distance between them — and they held placards with slogans. Of course it was a demonstration,” said Yang Chih-chieh (楊志傑), the commander at the scene on Wednesday. “We may allow them to walk around elsewhere, but the area surrounding the Presidential Office is a restricted zone, so we had to stop them.”
Zhongzheng First Police Precinct Chief Inspector Jason Yu (于增祥) said he understood why many people do not like the Assembly and Parade Act.
“Whether it’s a good law or a bad law, as long as it’s still there we have to enforce it,” he said.
Global bodies should stop excluding Taiwan for political reasons, President William Lai (賴清德) told Pope Francis in a letter, adding that he agrees war has no winners. The Vatican is one of only 12 countries to retain formal diplomatic ties with Taiwan, and Taipei has watched with concern efforts by Beijing and the Holy See to improve ties. In October, the Vatican and China extended an accord on the appointment of Catholic bishops in China for four years, pointing to a new level of trust between the two parties. Lai, writing to the pope in response to the pontiff’s message on Jan. 1’s
A Vietnamese migrant worker on Thursday won the NT$12 million (US$383,590) jackpot on a scratch-off lottery ticket she bought from a lottery shop in Changhua County’s Puyan Township (埔鹽), Taiwan Lottery Co said yesterday. The lottery winner, who is in her 30s and married, said she would continue to work in Taiwan and send her winnings to her family in Vietnam to improve their life. More Taiwanese and migrant workers have flocked to the lottery shop on Sec 2 of Jhangshuei Road (彰水路) to share in the luck. The shop owner, surnamed Chen (陳), said that his shop has been open for just
HOLIDAY EXERCISE: National forest recreation areas from north to south offer travelers a wide choice of sights to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits Hiking is a good way to improve one’s health, the Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency said, as it released a list of national forest recreation areas that travelers can visit during the Lunar New Year holiday. Taking a green shower of phytoncides in the woods could boost one’s immunity system and metabolism, agency Director-General Lin Hwa-ching (林華慶) cited a Japanese study as saying. For people visiting northern Taiwan, Lin recommended the Dongyanshan National Forest Recreation Area in Taoyuan’s Fusing District (復興). Once an important plantation in the north, Dongyanshan (東眼山) has a number of historic monuments, he said. The area is broadly covered by
Tainan’s initiative to recruit digital nomads has resulted in several German, US and Vietnamese nationals applying to live and work in the city, the Tainan Research, Development and Evaluation Commission said yesterday. That marked the city as the first in the nation to attract digital nomads, following the launch of the program last month, it said. Although all applicants so far have used work visas or tourism visas instead of the special digital nomad permit from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the city government believes that the latter would be needed eventually, the commission said. The digital nomads recruited by Tainan would work