517 DPP protest against Ma Ying-jeou's sovereignty-destroying pro-China policies

An amazing success -- except for the two guys that a cop put in the hospital and the black-shirted instigator in Kaohsiung who provoked a reaction (before crying like a stuck pig when he got what was coming to him and returning to Taipei today for more of the same)

I was there at the Taipei protest, but since I'm getting to this a bit late, I'll mostly just provide some relevant links.

But first, here's a photo I took on Ketagalan Boulevard (凱達格蘭大道):


The crowd on Ketagalan Blvd. #4
(Click to enlarge)
* The DPP says that 600,000 attended in Taipei (along with another 200,000 in Kaohsiung), but Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) puts the Taipei number at a mere 40,000. Doesn't he wish?!

* I shot some video at the 517 protest. This one shows a small portion of the crowd. The question isn't "Is Hau Lung-bin lying?" It's "How big of a liar is he?" Read the full desciption on its YouTube page for more info.


1:04 YouTube video: "517 raw video - Walking past NTU Hospital"

* An Associated Press piece by Annie Huang (unfortunately repeated without editing by the Taiwan News and expectedly by the China Post) not only refers to "Tens of thousands" of attendees, it inexplicably repeats the big, fucking lie that "China and Taiwan split amid civil war in 1949." Can you say "zombie lies"?

* J. Michael Cole does an even more thorough takedown of the mess of lies within that piece.

* The regularly-mendacious China Post still diminishes the number of attendees, saying there were "200,000."

* David Reid blogs that DPP reclaims the streets, reminding readers about the DPP's new English-language blog which regular readers of this blog or David's should go see.

* Speaking of which, here's the DPP International photostream on Flickr and their English translation of chairperson Tsai Ing-wen's (蔡英文) speech at the rally.

* David Reid's photos from the 517 protest as well as from the DPP's 24-hour sit-in also appear on the "citizen-journalism website and photo agency" Demotix.

* Michael Turton was in Taipei, too, and he calls the protest a "roaring success." He includes lots of photos, as you'd expect. But I disagree with one thing he says. I saw plenty of young people at this protest.

* A post on SocialForce.net (媒抗) leads to live streams of FTV and SET news coverage -- very useful for those outside of Taiwan (or even just without cable TV) who want to keep up with things.

* My Flickr photostream of images from the 517 protest begins behind the link.

* Luby Liao sent a link to a photo gallery.

* More images from the 517 嗆馬大遊行 and DPP and Free Taiwan Flickr groups. Some of my own photos are in those three groups.

* The Taiwanese Identity blog has a short post with photos on a specific theme: The Clarity of Taiwan's Identity.

* A 21-year-old police officer, said to have been driving 80 to 90 km/hr. in an area with many protesters, smashed his police car into two men in their sixties, injuring one severely and smashing half of the windshield on his vehicle. Last I heard was that he may have to have a foot or leg amputated and then cranial surgery.

* Talking Show (大話新聞), whose weekend time slots had been canceled since December 2008, had a special broadcast Sunday night covering topics such as the media's lies and the "accident" involving the police car.

That's all I've got.

---

Addends: Taiwan, 台灣, protest, 抗議, Ma Ying-jeou, 馬英九, media, 媒體, China Post, 英文中國郵報, Taiwan News, 台灣英文新聞, YouTube, photos, 相片

Cross-posted at It's Not Democracy, It's A Conspiracy!