Monday, September 05, 2011

Ma, Tsai attend ‘Seediq Bale’ premiere

LESSON LEARNED?:Following a security breach at a Tsai event on Friday, about 200 police and a support unit were dispatched to the Ketagalan Boulevard screening
By Chang Wen-chuan, Chris Wang  /  Staff Reporters, with CNA
Mon, Sep 05, 2011 - Page 1

One day after Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) was accosted by a woman on stage, security was clearly tightened yesterday evening when both presidential candidate Tsai and President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) showed up for a special screening of the Taiwanese movie Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (彩虹戰士:賽德克巴萊) at the Presidential Office plaza on Ketagalan Boulevard.

National Security Bureau (NSB) Director Tsai Der-sheng (蔡得勝) personally presided over security at the venue, saying he would rather “security measures are overly stringent than too lax.”

According to Taipei City Police Headquarter’s Chungcheng First Precinct, about 200 officers were dispatched to police the area around the venue, in addition to the Mobile Division sent by Taipei City Police Headquarters as back-up. Agents from the bureau and National Property Administration (NPA), were in charge of security inside the venue.

Ma, who is seeking re-election, and Tsai, did not cross paths at the event because they arrived at the -screening from different entrances and were seated in separate areas.

At 5:50pm, shortly before the premiere was scheduled to start, 50-year-old Lo Pei-chin (羅佩秦), who insists he is running in the presidential election despite not having registered, showed up with a microphone and shouted: “I am running for president and I should also be let in to see the Seediq Bale premiere.”

He was intercepted by police who escorted him to Taipei Main Station and saw him onto the High Speed Rail back to Kaohsiung.

Earlier yesterday, Tsai, -referring to Friday’s incident in which a woman rushed onto the stage and grabbed her by the arm shortly after she had finished giving a speech at an event in Greater Taichung, said the incident reflected serious security failings.

The woman, who is from China and is married to a Taiwanese, is well known in Taichung for her constant protests over a medical dispute, but was still able to directly access the stage without any security checks, Tsai said.

According to Huang Ching-fu (黃清福), a section chief at the NPA, the agency has assigned four male and two female bodyguards to Tsai, but her security detail will be expanded to 12 people daily after Nov. 21 when Tsai formally registers her presidential candidacy with the Central Election Commission.

Tsai said the NPA was not the only agency that needs to review security deployments.

All security procedures and the national security authority need to be reviewed, she said.

“The issue does not lie in how many security personnel were deployed, but in how intelligence was integrated and how the security procedures were implemented,” she said.

The bureau said yesterday that a team that will be responsible for the security for all presidential candidates was undergoing intense training, with particular focus on preventing close distance gunshots and nighttime security.

The team was expected to complete its training early next month and the bureau said it would hold a ceremony to formally announce the establishment of security details for the presidential candidates.

According to the bureau, the Special Service Center has organized four live fire exercises in Taipei, Greater Taichung and Greater Kaohsiung. Those exercises simulate scenarios where candidates canvass the public, in a night market, on campaign stages and on foot.

The bureau added it planned to form a total of 10 security stations near candidates’ residences, campaign headquarters and places of importance nationwide.