Lawmakers across party lines yesterday expressed support for the Taipei District Court’s rejection of a fine given to a Falun Gong activist by Taipei police for distributing flyers in front of Taipei 101.
To break through China’s constant information censorship on the Falun Gong movement, Falun Gong supporters in Taiwan often wave placards and distribute flyers to Chinese tourists in front of the Taipei 101 building.
Interior designer Hsu Po-kun (許柏坤), however, was fined NT$300 by Wei Kuo-hsiung (魏國雄), a police officer in Taipei’s Xinyi District, on Dec. 4 last year for “hindering traffic” at the building.
“I wave signs peacefully and I don’t stalk or provoke [Chinese tourists]. Why was I fined? Is Taiwan becoming the same as China, which oppresses Falun Gong?” asked Hsu, who appealed his case to the Taipei District Court.
Taipei District Court Judge Lin Meng-huang (林孟皇) said Hsu was expressing his opinions peacefully and rationally to Chinese tourists without hindering traffic, adding that his right to do so is protected by the Constitution.
In the ruling, apart from rescinding the fine, Lin criticized Chinese government censorship and urged the Taiwanese government to protect human rights.
Lin’s criticism of Chinese censorship in the verdict is unprecedented in Taiwanese judicial history.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus secretary-general Lin Hung-chih (林鴻池) said the District Court’s ruling was “correct” because people have the right to voice their opinions.
“Freedom of speech is protected by the Constitution and [the police] should not infringe upon the public’s basic human rights unless their behavior poses a threat to public order or violates other people’s freedoms,” Lin said. “Punishing him [Hsu] for this [protesting Chinese oppression of Falun Gong] was excessive.”
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators accused the Taipei City Police Department of lacking “respect for civil liberties.”
“The [police] need to understand that the public has the right to freedom of thought and expression,” DPP Legislator Huang Sue-ying (黃淑英) said. “The police department needs to revise its policies and stop pandering to the KMT government.”
She called on the authorities responsible for the incident to be “re-educated” on civil liberties, saying that Taipei City police should undergo an internal review of how they handle such situations.
DPP Legislator Chen Chieh-ju (陳節如) also compared the handling of Hsu’s case to criticism over how Taipei City police handled protests during a visit by China’s Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
Police measures during Chen Yunlin’s visit in 2008 drew criticism from civil liberties groups of excessive restrictions and curbing of public freedom.
“There are clear similarities between the two cases. In both cases, the police have been too overzealous in fulfilling the government’s wishes to shut down any perceivable opposition,” Chen Chieh-ju said. “It’s becoming ridiculous and they need to revise their policies. I’m going to bring this up in the legislature.”
Hsu said Falun Gong is an illegal organization in China, which blocks all information about the group. He and other practitioners often wave placards at popular tourist spots to draw attention to China’s crackdown on the sect. He said that he did not intend to provoke Chinese tourists.
Wei’s supervisor said the police officer gave Hsu a ticket because his unit received a public complaint and that there were no political concerns behind the case. The Xinyi Police District of the Taipei City Police Department said it would study whether to file an “interlocutory appeal” after it received the verdict.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS