myTELUS.com
    news
Print Article | Close Window
top story
Taiwan protest turns violent as people attack police with rocks, bottles


Photo
full image
Demonstrators are held back by water canon trucks as they try to pull apart police barricades, Saturday, in Taipei, Taiwan.
TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) - Riot police sprayed about 500 rowdy Taiwanese protesters with water cannons Saturday as a demonstration over the disputed March 20 presidential election turned violent in the capital.

The sides squared off along a barb-wired barricade on a wide boulevard in front of the Presidential Office, where the opposition held an afternoon protest against President Chen Shui-bian's narrow election victory. The demonstrators believed that an unexplained shooting that injured Chen one day before the vote unfairly influenced the election.

Although the rally was peaceful, an angry crowd of protesters lingered at the scene after the event finished. They began throwing bottles and rocks at about 500 police lined up on the other side of the barricade. Some tossed pieces of metal panels on top of the barricade and threatened to try to climb over and storm the Presidential Office.

After the mob dismantled a stage and threw scaffolding on the barricade, police shot them with water cannons mounted on riot trucks. The crowd refused to move and some sang marching songs and slipped on disposable plastic rain ponchos.

A group of protesters attacked a police station near the rally scene, breaking windows with rocks and ripping of an electrical box from the side of the building.

Earlier Saturday, about 50,000 protesters blocked off the busy street and signed a petition demanding a referendum on whether a special task force should investigate the mysterious election-eve shooting that lightly injured the president.

The demonstration has become a weekend tradition since Chen won the vote with a minuscule margin of 0.2 per cent. Many of the demonstrators suspected that Chen might have orchestrated the shooting to swing crucial sympathy votes his way in the tight race.

Protester Carson Huang, 46, a civil servant, said, "The shooting happened three weeks ago, but still the president has not made an effort to find a solution. We need the voice of the people to force the president to come up with an explanation."

Huang acknowledged that the government has already invited a team of prominent U.S. forensics experts to join the investigation. The group was led by the famous Taiwanese-American expert Henry Lee, who spent much of Saturday reconstructing the shooting scene.

But Huang doubted that Lee, who was involved in the O.J. Simpson case in the United States, would be able to crack the case.

The losing presidential candidate, Lien Chan, has already filed two petitions in the High Court. One asks for a recount and the other requests a new election.

Lien tried to whip up the crowd at the end of the three-hour rally, warning the president: "Don't underestimate us."

He accused Chen of acting like a dictator by not granting his demand for a special shooting commission.

"The democratic system in Taiwan is bleeding now," he said.

© The Canadian Press, 2004