Leading Sunflower movement member dies in accident

By Hsu Sheng-lun, Wu Chang Hung and Jake Chung / Staff reporters, with staff writer





Oliver Chen (陳瑞光), a leading member of the Sunflower movement, died on Monday after his scooter slipped off the road and he fell over a railing into a river valley on his way from New Taipei City’s Pinglin District (坪林) to Yilan County, police said.

A truck driver surnamed Hsueh (薛) reported the incident on Monday, police said.

Hsueh, who was driving back to Taipei from Yilan County, said he spotted a scooter without a rider near the 46.3km mark on the Taipei-Yilan Highway. He stopped and looked around for the driver before calling the police.

Rescuers from the fire department found Chen’s body in the river valley near the road, police said.

Chen showed no vital signs when his body was retrieved from the valley, which was about 9m deep, police said, adding that he had multiple fractures and bruises on both arms and legs.

The 46.3km mark on the highway is at a right-turn bend, the officers said, adding that the concrete railway showed no visible signs of impact.

They have talked to Chen’s mother, but she said she did not know why her son went to Yilan.

A third-year graduate student of law at National Taiwan University, Chen spoke English, Japanese, German and French, and played an important role in the Sunflower movement’s real-time updates to the world.

The activists provided round-the-clock broadcasts in English, Japanese, German, French, Dutch, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic during their occupation of the legislature in March to protest the government’s handling of a proposed service trade agreement with China.

Chen was part of the 80-person team tasked with communicating with foreign media and oversaw the translation of a civilian version of the cross-strait oversight act.

Chen’s body was sent to Taipei City Wanfang Hospital.

Student leaders Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷), Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆), Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) and other members of the Sunflower movement visited on Tuesday to express their condolences.

The news of his passing came as a shock to university staff and students, with the university’s secretary-general, Lin Ta-te (林達德), expressing his condolences.

The university would do everything in its power to help Oliver Chen’s family, Lin Ta-te said.

One of the university’s law professors, Lee Mau-sheng (李茂生), said in a Facebook post that it was sad to lose a talented individual like Oliver Chen in an accident.

Additional reporting by Su Fang-ho and Wu Po-hsuan