Independent Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday greeted by protesters as he entered a city council meeting, following the arrest of the last of nine South Korean labor activists that morning.
About 50 protesters pushed against a cordon of police officers outside the council venue after Ko accepted their petitions, shouting slogans accusing the city government of acting as a “shield” and “thug” for corporations.
While Ko was quickly hustled into the building, some members of his entourage were temporarily trapped between protesters and police, with protester chants echoing through the council’s entrance hall during a pre-scheduled city press conference.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
In response to protester demands that charges against South Korean labor activist Lee Sang-aun be dropped, Ko said that he had not made the decision to detain Lee.
Lee was detained after attempting to enter a shareholders’ meeting of the Yuen Foong Yu (YFY) Group, whose subsidiary E-Ink Holdings owns the South Korea-based Hydis Technologies Co Ltd — a plasma display manufacturer.
E-Ink’s decision to close the Hydis factory in Icheon earlier this year led to the laying off of hundreds of workers, with several waves of South Korean labor activists traveling to Taiwan to stage protests with the help of local labor activists.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
After Lee’s detention, activists protested first outside Taipei City Hall before moving to the city council chambers to wait for Ko’s entrance.
Labor activist Lu Chih-hung (盧其宏) called on city police to immediately drop the charges against Lee, saying that he had held a letter of attorney entitling him to represent a stockholder in the corporation and present worker demands to the company’s management.
“What the police were preventing was a worker presenting his views to his boss,” he said, accusing the police of acting as “private guards” for the corporation.
Levying charges against Lee following shoving between activists and police at the shareholders’ meeting was “disproportionate,” he said.
Lu added that the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) cited by police was normally used only in the event of residential disturbances and did not warrant the mass of police officers that confronted activists.
About 50 police officers stood in rows opposite the protesters outside the council chambers entrance.
Protesters also condemned a similar earlier arrest of eight South Korean Hydis labor representatives.
Lee is the last remaining South Korean representative, following their expulsion from Taiwan last week.
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
The National Immigration Agency (NIA) said yesterday that it will revoke the dependent-based residence permit of a Chinese social media influencer who reportedly “openly advocated for [China’s] unification through military force” with Taiwan. The Chinese national, identified by her surname Liu (劉), will have her residence permit revoked in accordance with Article 14 of the “Measures for the permission of family- based residence, long-term residence and settlement of people from the Mainland Area in the Taiwan Area,” the NIA said in a news release. The agency explained it received reports that Liu made “unifying Taiwan through military force” statements on her online
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, said yesterday that it is looking to hire 8,000 people this year, at a time when the tech giant is expanding production capacity to maintain its lead over competitors. To attract talent, TSMC would launch a large-scale recruitment campaign on campuses across Taiwan, where a newly recruited engineer with a master’s degree could expect to receive an average salary of NT$2.2 million (US$60,912), which is much higher than the 2023 national average of NT$709,000 for those in the same category, according to government statistics. TSMC, which accounted for more than 60 percent
Tung Tzu-hsien (童子賢), a Taiwanese businessman and deputy convener of the nation’s National Climate Change Committee, said yesterday that “electrical power is national power” and nuclear energy is “very important to Taiwan.” Tung made the remarks, suggesting that his views do not align with the country’s current official policy of phasing out nuclear energy, at a forum organized by the Taiwan People’s Party titled “Challenges and Prospects of Taiwan’s AI Industry and Energy Policy.” “Taiwan is currently pursuing industries with high added- value and is developing vigorously, and this all requires electricity,” said the chairman
RSS