A candlelight vigil was held at Taipei’s Liberty Square on Tuesday in commemoration of the Tibetan uprising on March 10, 1959, with nearly 150 people in attendance.

Prominent attendees included Democratic Progressive Party legislators Puma Shen (沈伯洋) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶), and Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Chen Chao-chi (陳昭姿), who are also members of the Taiwan Parliament Group for Tibet.

Photo: Lo Pei-de, Taipei Times

While the legislators were giving short speeches, a man in a black cap and red coat wearing a mask threw soundless firecrackers at the crowd.

The Human Rights Network for Tibet and Taiwan, along with 15 other human rights groups in Taiwan, yesterday issued a joint statement deploring such coercive actions.

The man attempted to harass the rally and disturb attendees, throwing firecrackers to create heavy smoke and smells, the statement said, adding that such malicious acts are common during Tibetans’ and Hong Kongers’ rallies against Chinese authoritarianism.

The rally was not affected much, as police officers stationed on-site promptly stopped the man, it said.

The police were escorting the man into a police car when another man showed up and tried to persuade the police to let go of his “younger brother,” the statement said.

However, rally personnel recognized the second man as the suspicious person who was sighted during the Tibetan uprising commemorative march in Taipei on Saturday last week, it said.

“He followed the marchers and kept photographing them when the procession moved from Far Eastern Sogo Department Store’s Zhongxiao outlet to Taipei 101,” the statement said.

Throwing firecrackers at people and photographing exiled Tibetans without consent aimed to intimidate and silence rally participants and supporters, it said, adding that such approaches are “gray zone” tactics the Chinese Communist Party commonly uses in exercising its “long-arm jurisdiction.”

They also reflected an organized, systemic crackdown pattern that should be regarded as transnational repression rather than a mere disturbance or criminal case, the statement said.

Such transnational repression not only targets Tibetans in Taiwan, but also constitutes a blatant provocation to Taiwanese democracy and freedom of assembly, it said.

Coercion such as this is often underestimated, but it builds an invisible prison in democratic societies around the world, the statement said, citing Swiss research.

“We remain unswaying against any form of violence and coercion in our determination to defend Tibetans’ cultural subjectivity and autonomy over the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation,” it said.

The Taipei Police Department’s Zhongzheng First Precinct yesterday confirmed that the two men, surnamed Lin (林), were brothers and Taiwanese.

The man who threw firecrackers was 21 years old and said he did it “just for fun,” it said.

Lin’s case has been transferred to the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of coercion, intimidation of personal safety, interference with personal freedom, and contravening the Assembly and Parade Law (集會遊行法), the precinct said.