SET TV reported last night....the government wants years in jail for Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting. J Michael gives the sobering description.
Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), two of the main leaders in the Sunflower Movement that has occupied the Legislative Yuan since March 18, could be prosecuted on five and six counts respectively, with the most serious offense resulting in imprisonment up to seven years for Chen.Of course, openly operating gangsters can come and go as they please, assault police, and even get citizenship despite a serious criminal record....
In all, the Ministry of Justice has listed 34 defendants in the case. The charges against Lin and Chen include “Offenses Against Personal Liberty” (妨害自由), “Offenses of Interference with Public Functions” (妨害公務), “intimidation” (恐嚇) and “malfeasance” (瀆職).
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Political prisoners? Even PandaMa can't be THAT stupid. Can he?
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瀆職 sounds so wrong to my common sense understanding that I had to check again and confirm that it only applies to public servants.
ReplyDeleteSome people on forums say that the media are playing Chinese whisper games again, attributing charges to other people to the two student leaders to make the news more sensational.
Surely the tactic here, as I've observed previously, is to tie up these "troublemakers" in defending themselves in the courts thus rendering them unable to concentrate on their activities. Would that be s likely scenario?
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine the public backlash and what it would do to the KMT Sunday election rolls around it they really go through with this?
ReplyDeleteMa just keeps digging and digging and digging...
Some democracy! Ma and the KMT have aligned themselves with despots like Bull Connor of Birmingham, AL, George Wallace and Ross Barnett. And I would be remiss if I did not include Dick Nixon and John Mitchell. Déjà vu all over again. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
ReplyDeleteThe Sunflower Movement reminds of MLK, the SCLC, the Chicago 7 (8), SNCC, CORE, NAACP, SDS, Ghandi, et al. Very good company.
Go students and young people of Taiwan. Make your voices heard. It is your future.
BTW, the letter allegedly written by Jiang's Lee Shu-jen is so predictable, trite, arrogant and condescending. If she didn't author the letter, she probably wanted to.
>>"openly operating gangsters can come and go as they please, assault police, and even get citizenship despite a serious criminal record"<<
ReplyDeleteTaipei Mayor Hau Lung-Pin said that those gangsters were just "passing by" the Legislative Yuan for four hours; therefore, they did not break any law. No prosecution required.
'In all, the Ministry of Justice has listed 34 defendants in the case. The charges against Lin and Chen include “Offenses Against Personal Liberty” (妨害自由), “Offenses of Interference with Public Functions” (妨害公務), “intimidation” (恐嚇) and “malfeasance” (瀆職).'
ReplyDeleteSounds like China, Turkey and Egypt to me. And yes, Ma, my remark is a put-down/slam. I feel compelled to tell Ma that because he seems so far removed from reality. Subtleties would be lost on him. (Smirk)
If Ma has any sense of historical legacy he'll make sure they each get 20 years so he can look like a great benevolent gracious leader by pardoning them.
ReplyDeleteHowever I doubt he'll do that. He won't see it helping the goal of helping China annex Taiwan, and a pardon wouldn't make sense to the authoritarian in him and his party.
Instead it will be interesting (and probably disappointing) to see how the candidates in the next presidential election handle the issue of whether the participants and leaders of the protest should be pardoned.
Meanwhile, CSB rots in jail because 'that's the result the people expect to see'. If justice is to be applied by the yardstick of public opinion then who should be in jail, Lin Fei-fan or Chang An-le.
ReplyDeleteWhat a difference between those two eh. The White Wolf wouldn't come back to Taiwan without assurances he'd get to enjoy his freedom. Lin Fei-fan and Chen Wei-ting on the other hand, are willing to step out of the LY without having sought any such promises, and indeed have stated they're willing to accept full responsibility for their actions.
Go ahead Matong, turn these two into martyrs. Let's see how much further the approval ratings can fall.
What happens if a group of students like these two break into US Congress in the middle of the night? Will they even walk out alive let alone come and go freely in & out of the Congress to be interviewed by medias?
ReplyDeleteWhy do you people always hold up the US as the example? Washington is just as dirty as Taipei, they're just better at PR and secrecy.
ReplyDeleteLet's talk about a really transparent democracy like Finland or Sweden eh? Would a pact like this have been passed in such way, with no public consent or scrutiny? We wouldn't be in this situation if all govt. operations were transparent and open, all email being open to public scrutiny and so-on. It's KMT's backroom, back-door habits that lead to this crisis, so don't go harping on about how these students would have been treated in the US. It's not the be-all and end-all of democracy. Set your sights a little higher.
Well said Les.
ReplyDeleteLikewise that 50center sockpuppet with the whiteguy pic that keeps commenting on the Taipeitimes needs to keep his trap shut. Too bad the TT only accepts comments via facefvck, otherwise more people would put him in his place.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/04/11/2003587765