"Please use your liberty to promote ours." - Daw Aung San Suu KyiThe Wild Strawberries were evicted from Liberty Square/Dead Dictator Memorial at 4 AM this morning, Dec 11. The move comes on the night of Dec 10, International Human Rights Day. Yes, that's right, they were evicted on Human Rights Day. The evictions came after Ma claimed in his human rights day speech that:
"Thanks to the government's continued efforts to uphold human rights, Taiwan has now become "the world's freest country" in terms of the people's right to assembly, which [Ma] said was very well demonstrated by several protests at the ceremony in support of a variety of causes."
For more details, see the Strawberry Blog. Even more ironically, this month's Taiwan Journal, a publication of the government, had an article on the Strawberries and the dawn of a new political engagement. Note that the eviction occurred at 4 AM, too late to make the morning papers. Smart....
UPDATE: Video
[Taiwan]
21 comments:
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Well...well...well...
That makes THIS CHINA POST article even more interesting, which stated that the students had THEMSELVES halted the sit-in on Sunday.
(I have it saved to my hard-disk in case the memory-hole should arrive)
I was wondering why there were 3 times as many viewers at their LIVE site now.
Poor move by the PandaMa administration.
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I'm confused. I thought they ended their protest after their march on Sunday?
The video has done already
website:
http://tw.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhe4xc5F3IQ
you can place the video in your blog
Evicted => Dragged and pulled and carried out of the square by an overwhelming police force.
Ma Ying-jeou is such a douche bag. He is pissing off every single civic group that matters in Taiwan, and the ones that don't too. What does he think is going to happen when all these activists, community leaders, environmentalists, lawyers, professors, students all hate him?
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VIDEO of this event can be seen HERE.
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A video of the eviction taken by one the students who was there has been posted.
link
The latest scuttlebutt circling around is that Mayor Hau didn't want the students linking up with some 70 Tibetan refugees who were also protesting there. The Tibetans, most of whom don't speak any Mandarin, were uncharitably dumped at various locations ranging from Neihu to Guandu.
The students are reassembling in Liberty Square as of 1500 Taipei time, though police are preventing them from bringing in any equipment.
Too bad they didn't spark another Kaohsiung Incident. Not that a violent clash is a preferred option, but the original "Incident" sparked a fire in some young professionals and otherwise obedient students, that led to the rise of democracy in Taiwan.
Now many of those old leaders have become stale and their words ring hollow. They have become too satisfied with the status quo and their long careers have provided them with too many connections with parties interested in the status quo.
A new generation of young people is desperately needed to re-imagine Taiwan's future and fight hard to secure the gains made by the old generation. They just need a catalyst.
Technically, I think Human Rights Day was over, but those chickenshit mofos!
And what a load of horseshit from Ma Ying-jeou about it having become "the world's freest country." (BTW, I wonder if he actually said "Taiwan" before the word country. Did anybody see or hear the original?)
Can we call it "White Terror" yet?
Tim Maddog
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I'm confused. I thought they ended their protest after their march on Sunday?
That was a lie spread by the pan-blue media (picked up by the western media), as I noted above -- if you are not being sarcastic ;>)
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STOP Ma and others,
I have made a comment about this on my own blog. I think there was some confusion created by the students themselves rather than a media conspiracy. The students said on Sunday that they were officially ending their protest or planning to pack up their protest (not clear which). Some students maintained the presence at Freedom Square, but where in the process of packing things up and looking for a new space to continue their work. Obviously the police actions came before they had completed this process.
Michael,
As the sword of righteous justice could you please inform us of Taiwanese websites that talk about American values of freedom in practice? Maybe a few links to the debates on the court in Guantanamo Bay might be useful, or something on US interest in oil in the Middle East and the 'liberating' of Iraq could be handy too. As it's around Human Rights Day why not inform us of what your government has done in the past few years about promoting freedom both within and outside the US before chiding other governments/places.
As it's around Human Rights Day why not inform us of what your government has done in the past few years about promoting freedom both within and outside the US before chiding other governments/places.
Because (1) this blog is about Taiwan (2) if my feelings on that aren't already known then you are even dumber than the usual run of anonymous trolls and (3) others with much greater expertise are doing it and (4) an evil remains and evil no matter who commits it and when.
But there's nothing stopping you, Troll, from coming out from under your bridge and doing that.
Michael
難怪有人叫他 Ma in joke (取馬英九諧音) 他說的話當笑話聽就行了!
This particular troll is the kind that can only throw shit without having any alternative idea. You notice how he keeps trying to detract from the topic and steer it to a different issue as if it justifies what the KMT is doing.
"As it's around Human Rights Day why not inform us of what your government has done in the past few years about promoting freedom both within and outside the US before chiding other governments/places."---Anonymous
我個人住在國外多年,剛回來台灣三年多,最近才發現這個網站,看過Michael先生的許多文章後,我忍不住想說:對Michael先生來說,台灣早已是他另一個故鄉(他應該也是台灣的公民了?),怎麼會是other governments/places呢?以他多年來生活在這裡對台灣深刻的體察,他比我這個土生土長卻長期離鄉背井的台灣人,更有資格發表他對台灣的看法!
What David said. I was told by one of the students on Saturday that they were planning to end the protest and sit in on Sunday. Obviously there's some confusion and miscommunication but it's not surprising that some of the media reported that the sit-in was ending on Sunday. No conspiracies here I'm afraid.
It's a shame that the police came when they did, especially if the students were looking to leave, but if a group of protesters gathered in a public square without permits in the west, they wouldn't last 24 hours until either the police evicted them, or permits were hastily arranged. The WS had a month-long sit-in - that's a pretty good run. Also for all their talk of being above party-affiliation, they brought in a pan-green heavyweight to speak on Saturday, which raises a few questions of its own.
And so the truth becomes known...
Craig wrote:
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Also for all their talk of being above party-affiliation, they brought in a pan-green heavyweight to speak on Saturday, which raises a few questions of its own.
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Craig, you seem to be talking about Lee Teng-hui (李登輝). Did they "bring him in"? Perhaps you missed it when they asked DPP politician Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) to get away from their protest outside the Executive Yuan back in early November.
While they may have been planning to end their activities at that location, they weren't planning to end their movement. And while it may not be a surprise that the blue media would say what they did, it was a distortion at the very least.
Anyway, guess what. They're still there at Liberty Square tonight.
Tim Maddog
Tim Maddog, you misunderstood, or perhaps I wasn't clear enough.
The questions it gave rise to was now that the greens and WS seem to be working much closer, was that why the order to clear them out was given. While they were supposedly non-party before, they weren't much of a threat to the blues, but if they link up with the greens it could change things, especially from a govt perspective.
cfimages, I can assure you the Wild Strawberries and greens are NOT working more closely together. Nor are they likely to. The students in Taipei have actively rejected the advances of the DPP and associated groups.
It is alleged by the Wild Strawberries that the presence of the Tibetans was the reason for the police crackdown on 11 December.
David, thanks. If they are staying away from both parties that's good, but they really need to work on their image in that case. As things stand now, it looks a lot like they are in bed with the DPP, and to most Taiwanese, that's not a good thing. As a veteran of a number of social and political protests in Aust, one thing I do know very well is that image is very, very important. In some cases it's more important than the actual message (sad but true).
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