A group of seven activists yesterday said they would take legal action against police and Novotel Hotel staff they say were involved in a raid of the activists’ hotel room on June 26 at the hotel chain’s Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport venue.
The group asserts that police broke into their room illegally and restricted their movement for more than 10 hours in a bid to prevent them from protesting a meeting between China’s Taiwan Affairs Office Minister Zhang Zhijun (張志軍) and his Taiwanese counterpart, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Wang Yu-chi (王郁琦).
Netizens have dubbed the action “room service,” referring to video footage provided by the activists in which an unidentified voice purportedly belonging to a police officer is heard shouting the phrase before police entered the room.
Human rights lawyer Kao Yung-cheng (高涌誠) heads the team of volunteer lawyers that have taken up the case.
Kao said the group is demanding compensation from the state and that it would press charges against the police for what it says are offenses against personal liberties and abuse of power.
Kao said the activists would also take legal action against Novotel staff for failing to protect their clients’ privacy, thereby breaching their contract. Three hotel employees were present at the incident, allegedly including hotel general manager Eric Rimbeuf.
Lai Chung-Chiang (賴中強), one of the activists involved and a lawyer himself, demanded an official apology from Novotel.
“We would hate to see our government and private enterprises sacrifice Taiwan’s human rights and values to pander to China,” he said.
Greg Yo (尤伯祥), one of the volunteer lawyers, said incidences of police brutality have risen since the 2008 visit of China’s former Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
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
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
Another wave of cold air would affect Taiwan starting from Friday and could evolve into a continental cold mass, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Temperatures could drop below 10°C across Taiwan on Monday and Tuesday next week, CWA forecaster Chang Chun-yao (張竣堯) said. Seasonal northeasterly winds could bring rain, he said. Meanwhile, due to the continental cold mass and radiative cooling, it would be cold in northern and northeastern Taiwan today and tomorrow, according to the CWA. From last night to this morning, temperatures could drop below 10°C in northern Taiwan, it said. A thin coat of snow
RSS