Police Videotapes of Anti-Taiwan Protest Burned

As six masked supporters of human rights reform in Taiwan watched, Monterey Park Police Chief Kenneth Hickman on Monday burned videotapes, slides and photographs police took of a May, 1984, demonstration against Taiwanese governmental policies.

The ceremonial burning, overseen by two firefighters at the police station parking lot, stemmed from a court settlement reached late last month by Monterey Park and the Taiwanese Human Rights and Culture Assn. of Los Angeles.

“This is a symbolic ending for what has been a difficult time” said Carol Sobel, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The Police Department, on the advice of the district attorney’s office, had filmed the 1984 demonstration protesting martial law in Taiwan.

Protesters had attempted to wear masks in order, they said, to protect their identities and ensure the safety of their families in Taiwan. But police told them that it was against the law to wear masks in a public demonstration. The group then sued the city.

“I don’t think we would ever have done something like this today,” said Hickman, who became chief earlier this year. As part of the settlement, the city acknowledged that in 1979, five years before the demonstration, a state Court of Appeal had nullified a California law that prohibited the wearing of masks during a demonstration.