Protesters from the "Bluebird" movement held a third day of demonstrations outside the legislature against opposition KMT and TPP bills aimed at making it harder to recall elected officials, increasing thresholds on Taiwan's top court and shifting funds for local governments. They expressed concern about democracy and the influence of China on Taiwanese politicians.
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00:00Rhys, tell us what people are demanding and how the opposition Kuomintang is responding.
00:08Yeah, well, there's a lot of protesters out in the street here demanding many different things yesterday more of a march through the streets
00:15But today more of a stationary protest with a stage and speakers folks handing out water and warmth packs
00:23Protests have spread around the country with reports of activity in Taichung this afternoon
00:29Taiwan plus we spoke to some of the
00:31organizers of the protest who highlighted
00:35Three main concerns and those are a group of amendments to laws
00:39Here in Taiwan one about recall laws one about the constitutional courts and one regarding how government funds are
00:47Allocated but outside of that there are general
00:51criticisms of going down opposition
00:54Legislators who are just acting them undemocratically inside the legislature
00:58By blocking doors to rooms where discussions and votes about those amendments are taking place. There's also a lot of
01:06Opposition here vocal opposition to one individual fulcrum Chi who is the KMT caucus whip?
01:14accusations that he's been acting on behalf of
01:17China with one speaker saying that his recent trips to China pose a risk to Taiwan's democracy
01:25Makes a fulcrum. She's from中國回來. Oh, how's that?
01:30Zhaole more for the leader meeting. Yeah. Oh, Joe. Wait. Wait. Don't go toe. Oh, wait. I won't meet you some icing
01:39Now there are folks here at the protest holding signs that say we need to protect Taiwan's freedom and
01:46democracy and there are some signs with
01:49Pictures of Xi Jinping or the Chinese Communist Party holding puppet strings with
01:54legislators hanging below them
01:56So that the protesters here really echoing those concerns
02:02Muchan
02:04Lime by the政治人物很明显的完全都是在配合中共的所有的
02:10政策
02:11几乎是国台办讲什么他们接着就会附和什么跟做什么这是我们最担心的我们必须
02:20要交出我们的身份证那像相信别的国家并没有发生这种事那
02:26甚至他我们的投票票数要就是门槛变得更高对那我们就变成说我们选到了一个不好的人之后
02:34我们很难把它换下来
02:36Now we've reached out to several guomindang or KMT legislators
02:41Who haven't made comment yet, but they have published a public comments on their social media feeds that read
02:49Call out the Democratic Progressive Party
02:52for using
02:53violence in the legislature
02:55They're putting into question the DPP's claims that there are world-leading democracy. They're even comparing the events of today
03:02To the South Korean president's call to martial law
03:06the guomindang calling on the DPP to stop acting like this in in the
03:12Legislature and saying that they the guomindang will be the ones to protect Taiwan's democracy and to never let it return to that vicious cycle of
03:21violent domination here, of course referring to Taiwan's own
03:25History with martial law and so with rhetoric
03:29Flying across party lines and the legislators still inside the building discussing and this protest
03:35With the organizers saying it's going to go on until midnight
03:38It's looking to be a long and quite consequential night for Taiwanese democracy