Taiwan protesters brave chill
From correspondents in Taipei
September 11, 2006 05:51am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
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THOUSANDS of protesters braved overnight cold and rain in the Taiwanese capital and vowed to continue their round-the-clock demonstration today aimed at driving President Chen Shui-bian from office.
Tens of thousands rallied yesterday at the start of what organizers have pledged will be a non-stop protest until Mr Chen, who has been dogged for months by corruption allegations against his family, agrees to give up power.
Overnight around 3000 hardy demonstrators remained rooted outside the presidential palace huddled under raincoats, some of them sleeping rough on the streets.
Today the numbers dropped below 2000 as a rainy chill set in, but the leader of the anti-Chen campaign issued a rallying call to his supporters urging them to turn out in their droves.
"There could be more rain today and tomorrow. But here I want to implore you not to be absent from this historic moment. I hope you can bring your friends and family here," Shih Ming-teh told reporters.
"This is an unprecedented protest. There is not any examples left by our forefathers to follow. As nobody knows what the protest may turn out to be, our every step will be brand new."
Mr Shih, a former chairman of Chen's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), has said he is prepared to maintain his campaign even until the middle of 2008, when the president's term in office expires.
Yesterday, most demonstrators wore red to express their anger and gave the thumbs-down sign as they marched through downtown Taipei, yelling the embattled president's nickname as they chanted "Ah-Bian, step down!" and "Ah-Bian sucks".
Organisers of the anti-Chen campaign put yesterday's attendance at around 200,000, though police declined to give an estimate.
Mr Chen's troubles started in May after his son-in-law Chao Chien-ming was detained and later indicted on suspicion of insider trading and taking bribes. Mr Chen has publicly apologized for Mr Chao's actions but said he would not resign.
Prosecutors then began looking at whether Mr Chen had misused funds intended for national affairs, and questioned him last month.
Reports in the Taiwanese media have alleged that prosecutors found only half of the funds for which Mr Chen's office had declared receipts and suspected that some of the money might have been used illegally.
"What the country really needs is a leader who can do something good for the people rather than one who hides in the presidential office despite so many corruption cases," Mr Shih, who has collected more than one million signatures in a petition to force him out, said yesterday.
"Our protest will never cease as long as he continues to stay in office," he said.
Mr Chen has declined to bow to the pressure, which he said is simply part of the opposition's persistent power struggles to push him out of office since he was elected as the island's first non-Kuomintang president in 2000.
Mr Chen was re-elected in the disputed 2004 election.
In June he survived an unprecedented parliament vote to topple him, after the move failed to win the backing of two-thirds of all lawmakers. If passed, it would have triggered a national referendum on Mr Chen's future.
His wife Wu Shu-chen is also under investigation for allegedly accepting department store gift certificates in exchange for lobbying efforts