Today was the march in support of  Migrant Workers’ Rights here in Taipei.  The march was intended to demand improvements to the rights of migrant workers in Taiwan, especially those from Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Viet Nam, Malaysia and other South East Asian countries.

The slogan for the march was “I Want My Day Off”, based upon one of their main demands, that they be guaranteed at least one day off per week.  Other demands included safer working conditions, improved pathways to citizenship, higher pay, better ability to change employers as well as others, all of which I would consider exceptionally basic and commonsensical.

These guys are Filipinos who now hold Taiwanese passports, yet who do now have a home registration and therefore do not have Taiwanese identification cards, which are needed for many things in Taiwan.  Without them, they are unable to get medical insurance and other benefits that I take for granted.  The guy I spoke with has been in Taiwan for 18 years, yet is still in such limbo.

Here, we see supporters from the Hsinchu Catholic Diocese.  I also saw a group from the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, who so often seem to fall on the right side of human rights issues.  So often (reproductive rights, gay rights, birth control), I fall on the opposite side of the debate from Christian groups, but here I am glad they recognize and support the important human rights issue of today. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday saw the start of what is to be a seven week march around Taiwan.  The purpose of the march is to emphasize to the government than any decisions of national importance, especially in relation to China should be made by the people via a referendum.

I went to the march with the very well known David, where we took in the beginning of the march, as well as walking as far as Ximending with the group.

By Taiwan’s standards, the gathering was quite small, though it should grow as time passes.

More after the break

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This blog post is brought to you by the letter S.

A few days ago, I posted my take on the May 17 protest in commemoration of President Ma, Ying-jeou being in office for one year.  The photos I chose for that post, were chosen primarily to help me tell the story.  The photos in this thread might not have the same narrative capacity, but the are representative of some of the people at the march.  No further commentary offered, nor suggested.

Sunday was the one year anniversary of Ma Ying-Jeou taking the presidency for Taiwan.  Well, one year later, people are not so pleased and they showed up by the hundreds of thousands to show it.  I met up with David and we headed over to NTU, one of four starting points for the marches that would end up near (actually not that near for most, due to numbers) the Presidential Building.

From the start, it was obvious that this was going to be a big rally.  Considering we were three other meeting points, I was quite shocked to see how many were at NTU.  Especially at the NTU starting point, there was quite a mix of people there.

Signs were, of course, everywhere.