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Title : Taiwan protest turns violent, Chen rules out election inquiry
By :
Date : 04 April 2004 1543 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/78573/1/.html

TAIPEI : Some 15 people were injured and around 120 arrested as riot police clashed with hundreds of demonstrators protesting results of the island's presidential elections.

Television reports showed dozens of men being taken away by baton-wielding police after demonstrators threw chairs and stormed barbed wire barricades in the worst violence to erupt since the presidential ballot on March 20.

The protest was the latest by opposition supporters demanding a thorough investigation of Taiwan's election, won by pro-independence candidate and incumbent Chen Shui-bian by a narrow margin.

Opponents of Chen have called for a probe into the shooting of the President and his deputy Annette Lu by an unidentified gunmen on the eve of the election, amid claims the incident was staged.

Tens of thousands of opposition supporters have protested to challenge Chen's victory since the elections.

The Chinatimes Express evening newspaper said around 15 people were injured and taken to the National Taiwan University Hospital for treatment after latest protests, which police had warned was illegal.

Taipei deputy mayor Ou Chin-teh said the police crackdown was necessary to preserve security. "We felt we had to take some action in order to maintain order," Ou told reporters.

Wu Yu-sheng, commissioner of the Taipei city government's Information Department, told AFP he felt regret at the injuries sustained by some demonstrators.

"Yet this was something unavoidable in the process (of dispersing the crowds," Wu said.

Mayor Ma, a deputy chairman of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT), himself gave the order, Wu said.

"All the people arrested were released hours later after they were questioned by police," Wu said.

Police chased several protestors, among them the right-wing former Taipei county councillor Chin Chieh-shou, who fled into the headquarters of the opposition Kuomintang (KMT).

The police action triggered a protest from the KMT.

"We want to file a strong protest to the Ministry of the Interior. How can police arrest people in our building?" a KMT official said.

The KMT-led opposition has alleged irregularities in the presidential election and claimed that the shooting on the eve of the election, which left Chen and Vice-President Lu slightly injured, had swung the vote behind the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.

Chen beat opposition leader Lien Chan of the KMT by fewer than 30,000 votes, or 0.22 percent.

But despite the sustained protests, Chen showed no sign of making further concessions to the opposition demands.

"Such an investigation group was beyond the scope of the constitution," said an official from Chen's DPP.

Chen had had his wound examined by a US forensic expert last week and vowed to recount the ballots.

A US forensic expert boosted Chen's claims the shooting was genuine by saying the President's injury appeared to be a "fresh gunshot wound" following an examination of the Taiwanese leader.

Taiwan's Control Yuan, the top government watchdog body set up to monitor politiicans and bureaucrats, has also announced plans to investigate the disputed ballot.

- AFP




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