Police paid a visit to the father of a
female lead singer on Sunday and not so subtly let him know that his daughter,
who performed during the 816 rally in Miaoli, was on their radar screen
Police states and authoritarian regime
often need not crack down on citizens to ensure “social order.” All they need
to do is let the potentially restive citizenry — the targets themselves, or in
traditional Confucian societies, the parents — that they’re being watched. In
most cases, the implicit threat is sufficient to deter individuals from
participating in social movements or to take action against the authorities.
Taiwan, of course, is not a police state,
and it shed authoritarianism more than two decades ago. But even today, through
a mix of antiquated regulations and a tendency among political leaders to
occasionally dip their toes in the dark waters of past practices, incidents
occur that should make us pause.
As I have written in previous posts, mostly
in reference to the protests surrounding the July 18 forced evictions and
demolitions in Dapu (大埔), Miaoli County, the government has in some instances resorted to
questionable practices in its handling of public discontent. On a few
occasions, “special zones” were created to separate protesters from senior
Cabinet figures. Police have sometimes grabbed random individuals whose sole
crime was to wear a red T-shit (a color often associated with the activists)
and to be walking near an area where a protest was taking place. Law enforcement
officers, sometimes unidentified, have been asking people to show their I.D. or
the latter, refusing, risk being taken away. Journalists have on occasion seen
their access denied, and in a few instances were physically removed by police
or plainclothes officers. The National Security Bureau has become involved in
countering the protests, and in Miaoli itself, the police force has acted more
as a personal guard to the local despot and the man behind most of the
controversies, County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hong (劉政鴻), than as a lawful
guarantor of public safety.
Now, realizing that browbeating by
politicians, hard measures by police and disproportionate fines and sentences
by the courts are failing to break the movement apart, the government seems to
have shifted tactic by letting a few key individuals know that they’re being
watched. It’s too soon to tell whether what follows was simply a local
initiative, or part of something more widespread. We’ll have to keep an eye out
for these things.
On Sunday the father of Lala Lin (林羿含), the lead singer of the metal band
Eye of Violence, was visited by police officers at his residence in Tainan and
informed that his daughter, who had performed during the Aug. 16 rally in front
of the Miaoli City Hall, was — how should we put it? — “on their radar screen.”
In other words, they were aware of her “activities,” and she was being watched.
As Lin rightly pointed out, such “warnings”
are usually reserved for individuals who actually pose a threat to society,
such as juvenile delinquents, hooligans, or people who have committed major
crimes. Apparently, showing solidarity with the residents of Dapu whose homes
were demolished is now such a crime. We should note that this kind of police behavior also occurred ahead of the visit by then-Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林) in November 2008.
Of course, once this was made public, the
National Police Administration had its explanations and maintained that this
was a misunderstanding, that the visit to the Lin household was a show of “goodwill” to ensure “good
communication” between law enforcement authorities and activists.
Right.
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