Focus Taiwan
Date: 2017/03/31
By: Elaine Hou, Wang Yang-yu and Liu Shih-yi

Taipei, March 31 (CNA) The Taipei District Court ruled on Friday that the main leaders

Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌, second left), Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆, left) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷, second right)

of the 2014 student-led Sunflower Movement — during which protesters occupied the Legislature for weeks in opposition to a trade-in-services pact with China — were not guilty of inciting others to commit a crime nor of obstruction of official business or other crimes.

A total of 22 protesters were indicted by Taipei prosecutors in February 2015 for breaking into the legislative compound on March 18, 2014, which led to a 24-day, unprecedented occupation of the parliament by hundreds of protesters. In a first ruling, all defendants were found not guilty though prosecutors could still appeal.

The 22 people include three leading figures: Legislator Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) of the New Power Party, then a research fellow at Taiwan’s top research institution Academia Sinica, Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) and Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), both student activists at the time.    [FULL  STORY]