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Minister backtracks
over e-mail
STRONG WORDS One student activist called
Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling an unrepentant hypocrite and a liar in
response to his ‘concern’ for student protesters
By Lee I-chia / Staff reporter
Responding to questions about an e-mail from the Ministry of Education which
expressed “concern” about student protesters last week, Minister of Education
Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) yesterday promised to ask universities not to pursue
investigations into student protesters and advised them to reconsider
regulations that call for punishments for students who participate in social
movements.
Students held two protests about media monopolization last week — at the
Executive Yuan from Monday evening to Tuesday morning, and at the Fair Trade
Commission and Legislative Yuan on Thursday.
Legislators revealed on Friday that universities received an e-mail from the
ministry on Thursday afternoon, asking them to “show concern” about and
investigate the protesting students.
The e-mail, sent by the ministry’s Student Affairs Committee, alarmed many, who
saw it as authoritarian.
At the legislature yesterday, Chiang said he had several times expressed his
concern for students protesting in bad weather during a meeting of heads of the
ministry on Tuesday, but the e-mail was not sent until after the protests had
ended.
“I have not the slightest intention of monitoring students,” he said, adding
that he felt sad that his “good” and “heartfelt” intentions had been
misconstrued.
“With empathy toward the students ... the ministry will review the methods of
expressing concern, to avoid putting pressure on them in future,” he said.
While legislators across party lines asked Chiang to apologize for the e-mail,
he repeatedly said the ministry would engage in “profound reflection.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) said the school
regulations of 22 of the 37 universities included in the e-mail still included
punishments for students who hold assemblies and protests, adding that the
ministry should have showed concern by eliminating such rules.
DPP Legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) said that Chiang should at least apologize for
the ministry’s inability to show real concern for students, even if he would not
for its misguided wish to monitor them.
“We think the ministry’s words of concern are hypocritical,” said Lin Fei-fan
(林飛帆), convener of the Youth Alliance Against Media Monsters and a National
Taiwan University graduate student, adding that the minister could have
approached the students when they were protesting in poor weather, or called the
premier to tell him about the students’ demands.
“Minister, I think you are full of lies, a hypocrite and a minister that does
not know repentance. I don’t think you are qualified to be a minister. Please
apologize to us,” said another convener of the alliance, Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), a
student at National Tsing Hua University.
Chen said he did not believe Chiang’s comments that he would have approached the
students if the protests had been about education, because he had refused to
meet students at several recent demonstrations at the Ministry of Education and
had even deployed riot police.
After the meeting, Chiang said: “In this case, I initially only wanted to show
concern for the students, but as the case developed, it has impacted on the
students and the general public. For this, I think I must express an apology out
of empathy.”
He agreed to inform the schools to review their regulations within a week.
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