Fishermen in Kaohsiung’s Zihguan District rallied outside an Advanced Semiconductor Engineering Inc. (ASE) plant in an export processing zone on Monday to protest against the discharge of polluted water that they said has harmed their catches.
Chang Han-hsiung, secretary-general of the Zihguan District Fishermen’s Association, led nearly 100 fishermen to the Nanzih Export Processing Zone, and several Kaohsiung City councilmen were on hand to lend their support.
They unfurled banners that accused the Ministry of Economic Affairs, which oversees the operations of the export processing zone, of covering up ASE’s discharge of polluted water.
Chang and fishermen were dissatisfied that Yang Chuan-kuo, a deputy section chief of the zone, would not respond to their demands, and they threw fish at Yang, resulting in clashes with policemen.
The clash ended after Yang promised to respond within two weeks.
Chang and others then walked to ASE’s K11 plant and shouted “despicable ASE” along the way.
As the plant would not send officials to meet with them, Chang and Kaohsiung City Councilman Chen Cheng-wen and others got angry, and some began to throw bottles.
The plant’s deputy manager Wu Hsu-wen later met with Chang and Chen, promising to convey their wishes to the company’s top management.
“We don’t want any compensation. We only want ASE to show its conscience and stop discharging toxic water,” Chang said.
ASE, the world’s largest IC packaging and testing services provider, is at the center of a pollution scandal after one of its plants in the zone, K7, was found to have discharged untreated wastewater into a river used for farm irrigation.
The Central News Agency