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Protesters tear down a MOFA sign
By Chris Wang / Staff reporter
Peter Wang, center, convener of
the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign, holds a Ministry of Foreign Affairs sign that
was torn off the ministry building during a protest in Taipei yesterday.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
Pro-independence protesters tore down a
name board of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday and clashed with
police on the sidelines of their protest against what they described as
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) poor governance and pro-China position.
Hundreds of supporters of the 908 Taiwan Republic Campaign (908台灣國) staged a
protest on Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the Presidential Office Building and
the ministry yesterday afternoon, raising a Taiwan national flag and throwing
shoes at the Presidential Office — an annual event of the pro-independence
group.
“The Republic of China [ROC] government has been a government-in-exile for 68
years and the Chinese Nationalist Party [KMT] has yet to develop a
Taiwan-centric identity. Ma has been selling out Taiwan since taking office,
that is why we’re here,” said Peter Wang (王獻極), convener of the group
The group held its annual ceremony yesterday on the 62nd anniversary of the
signing of the Treaty of San Francisco on Sept. 8, 1951, a date they say marked
Taiwan’s independence.
The crowds were supposed to turn themselves in at the Supreme Prosecutors
Office’s Special Investigation Division after the protest, but about a dozen
protesters broke into the ministry compound and tore down a metal sign that
reads “Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”
Wang said they decided to tear down the sign because of Ma’s diplomatic truce
policy on China, which advocated lowering bilateral tensions between Taiwan and
China by “not being provocative.”
Wang also demanded to meet with Ma and asked supporters to hold on to the sign.
The police engaged in a half-hour stalemate with the protesters in the compound
before snatching the metal sign back.
Zhongzheng First Precinct Police Chief Fang Yang-ning (方仰寧), commander of the
police force at the scene, said the protesters had violated the Assembly and
Parade Act (集會遊行法) and committed offenses by obstructing officers in the
discharge of their duties.
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