During the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee meeting yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator William Lai (賴清德) told Wang that police were over-zealous during demonstrations at the last cross-strait meeting in Taiwan, which took place in Taipei last November. Police confiscating protesters’ flags and illegally entering a road-side store during the demonstrations were two examples, Lai said.
Wang told Lai that police did not confiscate any national flags during demonstrations over the meeting between Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) Chairman Chiang Pin-kung (江丙坤) and his Chinese counterpart Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) last November.
Really? How does he explain this video then?
“It will not happen in the future either,” Wang said.
“The order we received is to let protesters be seen and heard,” he said.
Mmm. Interesting. Outright denial of the historical record followed by a veiled statement that police had 'been ordered' (by whom? they seem to work on orders that mysteriously don't come from the top) to let protesters be seen and heard, with the caveat that they have to protest within the conditions set by the unconstitutional 1991 Parade and Assembly Law, a relic of the transition from martial law to democracy:
Minister of the Interior Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺), when asked by Chiu whether people would be banned from accessing the hotel that Chen stays at, waving national flags or chanting political slogans, said the government would not ban people from accessing the hotel or limit their freedom of speech or action “as long as they apply [for a permit to demonstrate] in accordance with the law.Come December, I think i'll take a stroll down to the meeting place in Taichung and record some of the events. Let's see if the administration has learnt anything.
