*Taiwan's democratic elections (always much-trumpeted)
have gone wonky with a dual shooting of candidates
and a razor thin margin at the polls.
*Check out this strange history of Taiwanese
political violence. Are those mainlanders really
sure they want these characters back?
Taiwan protesters storm courthouse over election.
A crowd of angry supporters of Taiwan opposition candidate Lien Chan stormed into a courthouse in central Taichung early on Sunday to protest against his wafer-thin defeat in a presidential election. "Examine the ballots, examine the ballots," the crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators chanted as several dozen police tried to hold them back from the courthouse. Several pushed down barbed wire barriers and rushed into the building, smashing its glass doors, live television showed. It was the first violence since Lien lost Saturday's election by just over 29,000 to incumbent Chen Shui-bian.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L20393045.htm
Political violence in Taiwan.
The following is a chronology of political violence in Taiwan.
- 1970 - Vice Premier Chiang Ching-kuo, the eldest son of Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, escaped assassination by pro-independence activists during a visit to New York. Chiang introduced democratic reforms and died in 1988.
- 1976 - Taiwan Governor Hsieh Tung-min lost a hand and an eye in a letter bomb attack by pro-independence activist Wang Hsing-nan. Hsieh went on to become vice president and died in 2001. Wang was sentenced to life in prison the following year, paroled in 1990 and later elected to Taiwan's parliament.
- 1980 - The mother and seven-year-old twin daughters of dissident Lin Yi-hsiung were murdered at their Taipei home while he was in detention awaiting trial for sedition for organising a protest that turned violent. The killers are still at large.
- 1997 - Two gunmen broke into the home of Liu Pang-yu, chief of the northern county of Taoyuan, and bound the hands of Liu and eight others before shooting each in the head at close range. The gunmen are still at large.
- March 19, 2004 - Assailant fires at President Chen Shui-bian and his running mate, Vice President Annette Lu, while the pair campaigned for a presidential election in southern Tainan. Chen was hit in the stomach and Lu was wounded in the right leg. Neither was in critical condition.
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackageArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=479225§ion=news
*This doesn't even mention the Taiwanese politician whose
wife got run over three times by a car.
