Taipei Times
Date: May 26, 2016
By: Alison Hsiao / Staff reporter

Former premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) published an opinion piece in the Chinese-language United Daily News yesterday condemning the Executive Yuan’s dropping of charges against the Sunflower movement activists.

The Executive Yuan on Monday said that it was dropping all criminal charges against the students who stormed its compound in Taipei in 2014 during a protest against a proposed service trade agreement with China.

Jiang, who was the premier at the time, said in the opinion piece that the dropping of charges “clearly demonstrates that this incumbent government is one that has only politics, but not right and wrong, in mind.”

“The decision might not have come as a surprise with President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) being sworn in, but Premier Lin Chuan (林全) grounded the decision in the belief that [the storming] was a political problem, rather a legal one … It will be hard for a culture of rule of law to take root if the nation is led by a government that prioritizes political considerations,” he wrote.

“The Sunflower movement was one of the [nation’s] biggest social movements in recent years. When the protesters stormed into the Legislative Yuan, society was shocked, but was also to some extent sympathetic to it. However, the radical forces of the movement attacked the Executive Yuan, broke through barricades set up by police and wrecked public offices, which completely overstepped the boundaries of a democratic demonstration and violated the movement’s original call for rationality and peace,” Jiang wrote.     [FULL  STORY]