Protesters in Taipei joined the Fridays for Future climate strike today despite heavy rain.
The News Lens
Date: 2019/09/27
By: Brian Hioe
Photo Credit: Brian Hioe / New Bloom
Protesters started marching from outside of the Legislative Yuan and continued to the Red House by Ximending, past the 228 Memorial Park, Taipei Main Station, and back to the Legislative Yuan. At the end of the rally, demonstrators handed petitions to government officials outside the Legislative Yuan and the Executive Yuan.
Similar to the previous Fridays for Future protests in Taipei, the demonstration was highly artistic. While Fridays for Future protests have not been a regular event in Taiwan, a protest in May involved performers dressed in spandex costumes, billed as alien conservationists who had come to visit Taipei from the cosmos in order to promote environmentalism.
During the climate strike today, a group of performers dressed in white and covered with white paint walked zombie-like through the streets of Taipei, sometimes crying and screaming, representing the future victims of environmental disasters. Some performers carried a large dinosaur puppet and a dragon puppet, resembling the dragon figure used in Chinese dragon dances, representing the “monsters” of environmental destruction. Representatives of the Extinction Rebellion movement were also present, consisting mostly of expats living in Taiwan. [FULL STORY8]