MCLC: students leave legislature

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Terry Russell <Terry.Russell at umanitoba.ca>
Subject: students leave legislature
***********************************************************

As the students leave the Legislative Yuan in Taipei two separate polls
done by agencies on both sides of the political spectrum indicate strong
support for their actions, and dissatisfaction with the manner in which
President Ma Yingjiu handled the occupation.

http://news.ltn.com.tw/news/focus/paper/769787
http://home.tvbs.com.tw/poll_center (太陽花學運退場民調
<http://home.tvbs.com.tw/static/FILE_DB/PCH/201404/20140411100825657.pdf>)

Below is an English language report on the student’s departure.

Terry

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Source: Taipei Times (4/11/13):
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2014/04/11/2003587763
Legislative siege is over
DEMOCRACY FIGHT LIVES ON:One of the nation’s biggest resistance movements
ended yesterday with activists vowing never to back down from the quest
for freedom
By Loa Iok-sin  /  Staff Reporter

With hugs and tearful farewells, hundreds of student activists who have
occupied the Legislative Yuan for 24 days walked out of the legislative
chamber yesterday into a cheering crowd who gave them a heroes’ welcome.

“Leaving the legislature and retreating from the legislative chamber was a
very difficult decision to make, because we know that the expectations,
responsibilities and pressures we will face after leaving the legislature
will not be lower,” student leader Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) told the protesters
on the legislative floor before asking all protesters to leave the room.

“I would like to stress that leaving here does not mean that we are giving
up or backing down. In fact, this movement for democracy that began on
March 18 is a continuation of Taiwan’s history of resistance and the quest
for freedom that has been ongoing for more than 100 years. We will
continue the history and we will never back down or give up,” he added.

Lin said that after leaving the legislature, he and his partners planned
to travel the country to connect with the approximately 500,000 people who
took part in a demonstration on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the
Presidential Office Building on March 30.
“The 500,000 people are not just a number, and our next step is to go into
different corners of the country to get to know these people,” Lin said.
“The campaign is not over yet. We came with dreams in our minds and we
leave with responsibilities on our shoulders.”

He also warned that if the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) broke the
promise by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) — to adopt legislation
to monitor cross-strait agreements before reviewing the cross-strait
service trade agreement — a bigger protest would be mobilized.

“Occupation of the Legislative Yuan is only the preface to our action, the
first chapter will soon start within civil society,” Lin said. “We will be
back, we definitely will.”

“We will definitely meet again,” a group of students told each other as
they hugged before leaving the legislative chamber, while others were busy
cleaning up and restoring the chamber to its original state.

Another student leader, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), thanked all those who took
part in the movement, regardless of their age, profession or background,
while dismissing the media’s naming of the movement as a “student
movement.”

“From the very beginning, this movement has not been a ‘student movement,’
as many people who are not in the movement define it. It is a movement
that involves all citizens of this country, as well as many foreign
residents living in Taiwan and Taiwanese living overseas,” Chen said.

He thanked medical personnel, lawyers and members of other civic groups,
notably the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan, for their support and help.

While many people made a distinction between protesters at the Legislative
Yuan and those who once besieged the Executive Yuan on March 23, Chen said
that those activists are also their partners and that the violent
crackdown by the police against those people should be remembered.

Besides clearing all the posters, slogans, banners, medical equipment,
food and water from the legislative chamber and removing piles of chairs
that blocked the chamber’s entrance, the students also returned the
speaker’s gavel and placed it on the table in front of the speaker’s seat
before leaving.

Doing so is a symbolic gesture that we are now returning the legislative
chamber to lawmakers,” a student said. “We hope that our lawmakers will,
from now on, keep what the people want in their minds while formulating
legislation.”

The students also left a classical satirical work, The Bureaucracy Exposed
(官場現形記), on the table, with a note urging the legislature to adopt the
promised monitoring legislation before reviewing the cross-strait trade
pact and refrain from listening to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), but
listen to the public instead.

Originally scheduled to deliver a speech, Lin and Chen left the rally
before it ended at about 8:30pm.

After the rally, some still refused to leave, and as of press time,
several civic groups, including the Alliance of Referendum for Taiwan,
were still rallying outside the legislature, saying that they would wait
to be evicted by police.

Meanwhile, shortly after the students’ departure from the Legislative
Yuan, the National Police Agency ordered forensic investigators from the
Taipei City Police Department’s Forensic Science Center to collect
fingerprints from the legislative chamber.

The agency also dispatched police officers from the Special Police Sixth
Headquarters to surround and take over the legislature.
The move has raised speculations that the government might be planning to
take legal action against the students.

Additional reporting by Chen Hsiao-yi.