Should Anti-Nuclear Parents in Taiwan Bring Their Kids to Protests? · Global Voices
A baby sleeping at the anti-nuclear protest on April 27, 2014. The yellow banner says, “Stop the fourth nuclear power plant and give the right back to the people.” Photo by Instagram user <PERSON>. CC BY-NC 2.0
When Taiwanese police used powerful water cannons to evict anti-nuclear protesters on April 28 at 3 a.m., children were among the crowd.
Some protesters, who were rallying against the island's fourth nuclear power plant, had brought their young sons and daughters to the demonstration. The plant is now under security check and whether or not it would be put to operation would be decided by the result of an upcoming referendum.
Several newspaper columnists criticized those parents bringing their children to a protest scene as irrational for putting their children's lives in danger.
But protesting parents defended themselves, saying that the police should be the ones blamed and that their children also wanted to be heard:
清晨三點，警方開始從重慶南路那頭推進，現場民眾圍成很厚的人牆，試圖阻擋警察，不斷大喊帳棚有小孩，帳棚裡本來是有小孩，他們已經睡了，當時現場指揮官並未派出員警或是女性員警前來做柔性勸離，卻堅持以噴水車驅離，手持盾牌與警棍的警察也步步逼近，這些舉動讓擋在前頭奮力阻擋的反核民眾很驚恐，水車最後非常靠近，我們在民眾隔開的人牆護送下離開忠孝西路到一旁的人行道上，看到帳棚被警察一把舉起，直接用力甩開丟到隔壁車道，事先並沒有確認帳棚裡還有沒有人？
The police officers started the eviction at 3 a.m., and many protesters stood in front of us like walls and tried to stop them. 368
They kept yelling that there were children in the tents and they were sleeping inside. The police commander insisted on using water cannons to evict protesters without sending police officers to arrange for the children to leave the scene. When the police officers with shields and rods approached and the water tank moved forward, the protesters in the front line were very anxious. They formed a human shield and helped us to move to the sidewalk on ZhongXiao West Road. We saw that police officers razed our tents and threw them into another lane before checking whether there were people inside.
我們在忠孝西路上靜坐的時候，有位六歲的小孩說，「我好希望政府跟在那些警察的後面噢，這樣他們就可以聽到我們的聲音，知道我們想要什麼、不要什麼。 368