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Protesters call for Want Want
chairman to apologize
By Shelley Shan / Staff reporter
A demonstrator gestures in front
of a poster of Want Want-China Times Group chairman Tsai Eng-meng during a
student protest in front of CtiTV headquarters in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
About 700 people yesterday protested in
front of the CtiTV (中天電視) building in Taipei, calling on Want Want-China Times
Group (旺旺中時集團) chairman Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明) to apologize for leading what they
called an “unprofessional media group” and to return to his old business of
selling rice crackers.
The protesters were mainly members of the Anti-Media Monster Youth Alliance,
which is composed of 30 student clubs from several universities. Teachers,
journalists and regular working people also showed up, adding to the mix of
placards and posters.
Alliance spokesperson Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), who is also the chairperson of National
Taiwan University’s Graduate Student Association, said the media outlets in the
Want Want-China Times Group used tremendous resources to -attack Academia Sinica
associate research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), an outspoken media expert who
opposes Want Want’s acquisition of cable TV services owned by China Network
Systems (CNS, 中嘉網路).
Lin Fei-fan said Want Want media outlets had alleged that Huang paid students to
protest in front of the National Communications Commission on Wednesday last
week when commissioners granted conditional approval to the Want Want-CNS deal.
China Times Weekly deputy editor-in-chief Lin Chao-hsin (林朝鑫) threatened to sue
a student who accused him of being the instigator of the student protests last
week.
“The Want Want-China Times Group should stop its attacks [on Huang and the
students],” Lin Fei-fan said. “We ask Tsai to apologize to the public because
the media group has become a terrible and second-rate institution under his
leadership. We also ask the new NCC commissioners to revoke the commission’s
ruling on the Want Want-CNS deal and review the case again. They must not allow
such terrible media to continue to exist in Taiwan.”
In response, CtiTV spokesperson Huang Chun-ren (黃俊仁) reiterated that students
had been paid to join the protest, and that Want Want-China Times Group had
never said that Huang Kuo-chang was the real organizer of the student protest.
Huang Chun-ren said their reports were not meant to tarnish anyone’s reputation,
but rather to make the point that paid social movements should be scrutinized.
Want Want-China Times Group was also victimized by false rumors and it simply
wants to find out the truth, Huang Chun-ren said.
In related news, thousands of Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信) Union workers protested in
front of the commission’s headquarters yesterday because a proposed amendment to
the Telecommunications Act (電信法) would force Chunghwa to relinquish control of
“last mile” operations, allowing other telecoms operators to take over.
The “last mile” refers to the final leg of telecommunications connectivity from
a communication service provider to a customer.
The commission’s proposed amendment would require Chunghwa Telecom to charge
other carriers using the last mile at prices reflecting only its costs. If that
move fails to facilitate competition in the telecommunications market, the
government could ask Chunghwa to spin off last mile facilities into separate
business entities.
The union said that many fixed-network operators had entered the market since
the government privatized operations at Chunghwa Telecom.
However, the infrastructure for fixed-telecom networks had not expanded as a
result, the union said.
The union said the commission should ask other telecoms operators to build
infrastructure, not just Chunghwa Telecom. The government also sold the last
mile to Chunghwa when it wanted to turn it into a private firm, the union said.
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