Wild Strawberries Movement
The Wild Strawberries Movement () is a protest movement in Taiwan begun on 6 November 2008 after the visit of the People's Republic of China's ARATS chairman Chen Yunlin to the island. Police actions on protests aimed at Chen suppressed the display of Republic of China national flag and the playing of Taiwanese songs. This prompted a group of 400 students in Taipei, Taiwan to begin a sit-in in front of the Executive Yuan in protest of Taiwan's . Background. The name chosen by the students for their initiative, "Wild Strawberry", makes a pair of  references. The word "wild" recalls the Wild Lily student movement of 1990, which led to vast political reforms and Taiwan's first general democratic elections. The word "strawberry" makes ironic use of the term "strawberry generation", a description of Taiwan's youth employed pejoratively by their elders to portray the newest generation as "soft", lacking strength of character and political convictions. Demonstrations. Sit-ins began with students in Taipei in front of the Executive Yuan. On 7 November 2008, police began removing protesters from the scene and taking them to separate locations around the city. Having made a regrouping plan  earlier, the students reconvened at Liberty Square in front of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. Following the lead of the students in Taipei, six other sit-in protests sprang up around Taiwan: Student demands and government responses. The student-led sit-in protests were conducted in response to incidents of police violence and abuse of power during the visit of Chen Yunlin to Taiwan. The original protesters in Taipei issued a statement with the following demands: Government responses to the Wild Strawberry petition included these actions: The amended version of the law remained controversial at the time of drafting  in May 2009. Proposed changes fell short of student demands for a law in Taiwan that resembles assembly laws in European Union nations and the United States that give priority to constitutional guarantees of rights to peaceful assembly and free speech. While the proposed amendments would make the new law generally more permissive than one crafted during the martial law period, proposals continued to give state police substantial powers of veto over the content and location of citizen rallies. WildBerry House. On 4 January 2009, the movement stopped sit-ins. A headquarters called "WildBerry House" () was established in Taipei for  the movement. This location subsequently closed as of 30 June 2009.