A quarrel broke out between students and a “military instructor” this week at Fu Jen Catholic University in New Taipei City, where students initiated a campaign to remove a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) from the school grounds.
Leading the campaign were three law students who had designed stickers with the slogan “Support us to get rid of the poison residue of Chiang Kai-shek from campus” (無限期支持蔣介石遺毒滾出校園), a red slash on a picture of Chiang and “Get Out!” in English.
When the three students put the stickers on a campus statue of Chiang earlier this week, a man nearby began a heated argument and tried to detain the students.
Screengrab from National Kaohsiung Normal University’s Facebook page
One of the students filmed the incident and posted it online.
The angry man, surnamed Shang (尚), was the university’s military instructor.
Shouting, he called for the students to be arrested because they had broken school regulations by vandalizing public property.
“Who gave you the right to put stickers here? What you are doing is a criminal act,” Shang said.
Initially, the students refused to remove the stickers and retorted: “Why can we not put stickers here? Please tell us which school regulation we are violating.”
As the quarrel continued, Shang got more angry and shouted: “In my heart, Chiang Kai-shek is a great man.”
“I was a captain in the military police. I have also been a prison warden, so I know the kind of crime you have committed,” he added, demanding to know the students’ names, their identification numbers and other personal information.
The students finally gave Shang their names and other personal information, while complaining that his verbal threats and his attempts to keep them from the statue were offenses against their personal liberty.
The video was heatedly discussed by netizens.
“These military instructors are using their rank to oppress people. It felt like turning back the clock, to be living under martial law,” one netizen wrote.
“How can we still allow these officers, who have left or retired from the military, to continue such repression and abuse of students?” another wrote.
Some netizens said the students were wrong to “deface” the statue and had violated school regulations, while others insisted that all Chiang Kai-shek statues should be removed from all university campuses.
Fu Jen Catholic University director of public affairs Wu Chi-mei (吳紀美) denied Shang had called the police and asked them to arrest the students or taken any action to punish the students.
Wu said Shang did not mean any harm and he was just trying to stop school property being vandalized, adding that he had been in the job for one-and-a-half years and had not previously had any conflict with students.
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) yesterday appealed to the authorities to release former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) from pretrial detention amid conflicting reports about his health. The TPP at a news conference on Thursday said that Ko should be released to a hospital for treatment, adding that he has blood in his urine and had spells of pain and nausea followed by vomiting over the past three months. Hsieh Yen-yau (謝炎堯), a retired professor of internal medicine and Ko’s former teacher, said that Ko’s symptoms aligned with gallstones, kidney inflammation and potentially dangerous heart conditions. Ko, charged with
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama