Taiwan Church News 3370 Edition September 26 - October 2, 2016 Church Ministry Demonstrators Of Anti-Forced-Eviction March On Ketagalan Boulevard Reported by Chiu Kuo-rong In the afternoon on September 25, chanting against the government's illegal land expropriation and brute forced-eviction, thousands of demonstrators from about 60 civil groups assembled on the Ketagalan Boulevard. As the issue of land justice was still not well solved after a new launch of DPP regime from May, the Tsai administration was urged by to halt immediately those particularly contentious cases of forced-eviction. This assembly of demonstration was organized by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights, the Taiwan Alliance ofAnti-Forced-Eviction, the Treasure Our Island Organization, the Economic Democracy Union and etc. Many demonstrators, primarily those who were forced to evict from their houses in Kaohsiung and New Taipei City,and whose properties had been expropriated by the government, came to this assembly with a similar sad story - badly treated by local government. "We have been made domestic refugees," said professor Hsu Shih-jung, a veteran land justice activist and the director of the Treasure Our Island Organization. "This is a war indifferent to party politics, as the fury of the people is always pointed toward the powerful!", the major theme announced by the assembly. It's urgent for the central government to take up the responsibility to protect people from the arrogance of local governments - i.e. illegal expropriation and forced-eviction, and fix up the increasingly complicated problem of "domestic refugees", said professor Hsu. Translated by Peter Wolfe |