Photographs from the Student Protest in Taiwan

We are complicit in what’s become of 21st-century movements: protests, and even revolutions, are made with images.

It’s been a week since protesters of the now-called Sunflower Protest Movement who had occupied the Executive Yuan in Taipei were removed by the police, ending a nearly week-long demonstration against Taiwan’s signing of a trade pact with China. The pact, signed in July, will open up further trade in services between Taiwan and China, and critics say that it will hurt Taiwan’s local businesses and leave the country open to manipulations from China.

It probably didn’t help, with Russia’s “annex” of Crimea.

President Ma Ying-jeou and the ruling KMT have agreed to introduce a law that will monitor future trade agreements with China, but have refused to retract the signed trade pact as the protesters demand.

Here are some photographs from the protest in Taiwan over the weeks.

Protesters camping out. The banner overhead reads (partly?), “Dad, Mom, don’t worry.”

(Photo: AFP)

In the Executive Yuan, students pile chairs to build a temporary barrier

(Photo: Getty Images)

Fans block the stairway in the Executive Yuan

(Photo: Getty Images)

And – they’re in! A veritable Where’s Waldo – look at the yellow signs echoed in the sunflowers, the piled chairs, a fan saved from the stairs, the reporters working on their laptops along with conscientious trash collectors in the foreground, someone taking a nap?
(Photo: CNN)

Police remove protesters from the Executive Yuan and from the streets

Some of the images of police and protesters are disturbing

(Photo: AP)

Sunflowers have been used as a symbol by the protesters to shed “light” into the opaque government process.
The shirt worn by the man to the right translates to, “Our own country, we rescue ourselves.”
(Photo: Apple Daily)

Although students and protesters are no longer occupying Executive Yuan, there are still anti-trade pact rallies. This one, though, was a protest against that:asking for the protesters to clear and the government to return to normal working schedules.
The cardboard sign? “With trade agreement, Taiwan has hope. Everyone approves. With trade agreement, the country has a future.”
(Photo: AP)