Over 10,000 in-service and retired teachers held a sit-in near the office of Taiwan leaders in Taipei Saturday, to protest authorities' cancellation of a decades-old policy that provides an 18-percent preferential bank deposit rate for retired soldiers, public servants and teachers.

Most of the sit-downers wore a gauze mask, meaning that they were so depressed by the new policy that they could not speak, according to local media.

The protest was launched by the alliance of retired teachers and the teachers' association, opposing "splittism, hatred, and libel" and demanding for "financial equalitarianism, negotiations and their own trade union."

They demand that the authorities should apologize for the sudden decision to cancel the favorable policy that has been adopted for decades and that officials who are responsible for this matter should be fired.

The policy change may cast negative impacts on about 200,000 people from these three groups, including some 160,000 retired teachers who would have their monthly income reduced by thousands or even tens of thousands NT dollars each.

Source: Xinhua