People In Taiwan Held A Huge Protest To Demand A Ceasefire In Gaza And For Taiwan Stop Supporting Israel
We asked the demonstrators why it was important they continue to show up for Palestine.
Braving extreme torrential downpour, hundreds of people in Taiwan marched through the streets of the capital, Taipei, on June 23 to demand a ceasefire in Gaza.
Led by a rave and punk DJs on a truck, the protesters also called on Taiwan to end its complicity in the genocide in Gaza and stop supplying weapons components to Israel.
We asked the demonstrators why it was important they continue to show up for Palestine.
"I can no longer watch this genocide happen and do anything about it," 17-year-old Zoe told ALmost.
"I want to let everyone know that we didn’t come out here to support Hamas. We came out here to support Palestinians," Black Dragon, a YouTuber from Gambia in Taiwan, told Almost. "There are hardly any hospitals left in Palestine, hardly any schools left, hardly anything is left, hardly any life is left. About 80% of Palestinians in Gaza no longer have homes."
45-year-old Chen Hsiao-hua brought his two children to the protest.
Chen said he wanted to come out to allow people to see clearly that the world is very complex.
"There is nothing like that just because you are anti-war, you must be anti-Israeli, if you are anti-war, you must be anti-democracy. This is impossible. People should think about it from the root," Chen added.
"I feel that coming out today and supporting is an act of supporting resistance, resistance against your home being attacked. If this happened in Taiwan today, if any totalitarian organization or any place or any country, wants to invade and occupy Taiwan, I believe Taiwanese people would definitely come forward," Malika, a Taiwanese Muslim woman who works at the Taipei Grand Mosque, told Almost.
She added that people misunderstand what is happening in Gaza as a religious issue just because majority of the Palestinians are Muslims.
"When people understand that what Islam truly teaches us is peacand how to treat others, they will understand 'terrorists' are just labels Western media has applied due to its Islamophobia," she said.
Kuo Chia-yin, a 40-year-old DJ with the Taiwan Rave and Punk Solidarity Front For Palestine, told Almost that people need to return to the root of the matter — that what is happening in Gaza is a problem of humans and their existence.
"Can we we can empathize with the people who are being oppressed?" he said.
"Taiwan actually has a lot of companies that are accepting a lot of orders from Israel and the US to make weapons components and a lot of these weapons parts are very likely flying atop Gaza’s skies and massacring people," Lala Lau, one of the organizers of the protest, told Almost.
Lau also said Taiwanese people have a responsibility to tell the government they do not support this massacre.
Also Read
Kassy Cho
Kassy Cho
