thousands of riot police from the National Police Agency were mobilized across the country to surround the protesters. On March 20, Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng promised not to use force on the protesters. On March 21, Speaker Wang refused to meet with President Ma Ying-jeou and Premier Jiang Yi-huah to discuss a response, stating that the president should listen to the people and that a compromise was needed between the lawmakers first. Premier Jiang met with demonstrators outside the legislature on March 22 but stated that the executive branch had no intention of dropping the trade pact. At a press conference on March 23, President Ma restated his resolve in passing the trade pact and affirmed he did not act according to orders from Beijing. Executive bureau occupation and eviction In response to the press conference, a group of protesters led by Dennis Wei stormed and occupied the Executive Yuan around 7:30 p.m. local time on March 23. The protesters were evicted from the Executive Yuan by 5:00 a.m. on March 24, but some congregated again on Zhongxiao East Road. During the 10-hour eviction process, around 1000 riot police and other law enforcement personnel reportedly used excessive force, including water cannon and baton strikes to the head against the nonviolent protesters, while journalists and medics were ordered to leave. More than 150 people were injured and 61 were arrested. The Association of Taiwan Journalists accused the police of using violence against the media during the eviction process and violating freedom of the press, citing more than 10 cases of attacks on media reporters. Attempted negotiations On March 25, President Ma invited representatives of the student protests to his office for a dialog over the controversial trade agreement "without any preconditions", after the president said earlier he would not hold face-to-face talks. One of the student leaders Lin Fei-fan accepted the invitation initially and agreed no preconditions should be set for the meeting, but he said the students wanted to discuss whether Taiwan needed new legislation to monitor all cross-strait agreements, and whether the CSSTA should be postponed until that legislation was introduced. However, one day later, on March 26, the protest leaders rebuffed the invitation to meet despite earlier calling on President Ma to meet with them to answer their demands, as they feel Ma, who was the Chairman of the Kuomintang, was still controlling the Kuomintang legislators via the