Houston Community News >> Students Protest President Chen in Taiwan
11/11/2007 (China Post)-- One coed was
thrown onto the ground and another lay aground to protest in Tainan
yesterday as students complained against President Chen Shui-bian's
failure to make the Lo Sheng Leprosarium a national heritage site. Six
college students, all from Taipei, unfurled a white banner of protest at
the National Cheng Kung University campus where President Chen took part
in the celebration of its 76th founding anniversary.
They also displayed posters to protest the government inaction on the conservation of the Lo Sheng complex, built by the Japanese during their occupation of Taiwan to isolate all patients of Hansen's disease.
As the students approached, Chen's bodyguards stopped them and forcibly removed them from before the embarrassed president.
During the scuffle, a judoist bodyguard threw down the coed by katasukashi or shoulder throw. The coed, known only by her family name of Wang, suffered no injuries, however.
"All we want," the ashen-faced Wang said, "is to let the president hear what we want to say!"
It was another coed, named Liao, who displayed the banner of protest she had hidden in her knapsack. Wang wanted to help her.
As she went closer to Liao, Wang was grasped and thrown by the unidentified bodyguard.
Liao lay on the ground, shouting to the president "Have you heard us?"
One male student was hauled away by two other bodyguards. He wasn't hurt.
The six students from Taiwan University, Chinese Culture University and Taipei University of Science and Technology were able to get into the campus with the help of their sympathetic Cheng Kung counterparts.
Three other students, all male, left without incident.
No arrests were made.
President Chen watched the forcible removal of the students. "Students," he commented, "it's not very good for you to act like this."
Lee Nan-yang, spokesman for President Chen, said Premier Chang Chun-hsiung has been instructed to meet the protesting students before this week is out.
"The president is concerned about the issue of the Lo Sheng Leprosarium," Lee said. "The president has instructed the premier to see to it that the problem is satisfactorily solved," he added.
The Council for Cultural Affairs has designated the leprosarium as a national heritage site, but no action has followed to preserve it as a place of historical importance.
From the Cheng Kung campus President Chen went to Chiku to dedicate a new plant of the Kai Suh Suh Enterprise.
He served one time as consultant lawyer for Kai Suh Suh.
A dozen villagers were waiting at Chiku to appeal to the president for help in removing a radar station of the National Weather Bureau.
It wasn't a demonstration in protest, but police drove the villagers away. None of them were able to get near enough to the president to appeal for help in person.
They said the meteorological radar station in Chiku, where black-faced spoonbills winter in a nearby sanctuary, poses a health hazard.
Among the supplicants were three mentally retarded children, who Hung Chia-mu, their leader, said have been victimized by the radar station.
The campus protest was the third in a series over the past four days. People in Taipei and Kaohsiung protested against the rising cost of living and wage stagnation on Thursday and Friday.
They also displayed posters to protest the government inaction on the conservation of the Lo Sheng complex, built by the Japanese during their occupation of Taiwan to isolate all patients of Hansen's disease.
As the students approached, Chen's bodyguards stopped them and forcibly removed them from before the embarrassed president.
During the scuffle, a judoist bodyguard threw down the coed by katasukashi or shoulder throw. The coed, known only by her family name of Wang, suffered no injuries, however.
"All we want," the ashen-faced Wang said, "is to let the president hear what we want to say!"
It was another coed, named Liao, who displayed the banner of protest she had hidden in her knapsack. Wang wanted to help her.
As she went closer to Liao, Wang was grasped and thrown by the unidentified bodyguard.
Liao lay on the ground, shouting to the president "Have you heard us?"
One male student was hauled away by two other bodyguards. He wasn't hurt.
The six students from Taiwan University, Chinese Culture University and Taipei University of Science and Technology were able to get into the campus with the help of their sympathetic Cheng Kung counterparts.
Three other students, all male, left without incident.
No arrests were made.
President Chen watched the forcible removal of the students. "Students," he commented, "it's not very good for you to act like this."
Lee Nan-yang, spokesman for President Chen, said Premier Chang Chun-hsiung has been instructed to meet the protesting students before this week is out.
"The president is concerned about the issue of the Lo Sheng Leprosarium," Lee said. "The president has instructed the premier to see to it that the problem is satisfactorily solved," he added.
The Council for Cultural Affairs has designated the leprosarium as a national heritage site, but no action has followed to preserve it as a place of historical importance.
From the Cheng Kung campus President Chen went to Chiku to dedicate a new plant of the Kai Suh Suh Enterprise.
He served one time as consultant lawyer for Kai Suh Suh.
A dozen villagers were waiting at Chiku to appeal to the president for help in removing a radar station of the National Weather Bureau.
It wasn't a demonstration in protest, but police drove the villagers away. None of them were able to get near enough to the president to appeal for help in person.
They said the meteorological radar station in Chiku, where black-faced spoonbills winter in a nearby sanctuary, poses a health hazard.
Among the supplicants were three mentally retarded children, who Hung Chia-mu, their leader, said have been victimized by the radar station.
The campus protest was the third in a series over the past four days. People in Taipei and Kaohsiung protested against the rising cost of living and wage stagnation on Thursday and Friday.
(Contributed by China Post)