The Kaohsiung City Council recently passed a motion demanding that the city government and private organizations not be allowed to invite to the city Chinese officials who have been accused of violating human rights. The motion included making the same suggestion to the central government, asking it to refuse such officials entry to Taiwan.
With Chinese officials increasingly leading delegations to Taiwan, Kaohsiung City Councilor Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suggested that Chinese officials who have violated human rights should be refused entry to the country.
The motion was supported by councilors from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps last week and it has now been submitted to the Mainland Affairs Council, the National Immigration Agency and the Kaohsiung City Government.
Kang said that because Guangdong Province Governor Huang Huahua (黃華華), Shaanxi Province Vice Governor and Acting Governor Zhao Zhengyong (趙正永), State Administration of Religious Affairs Director Wang Zuoan (王作安) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Deputy Secretary of Hubei Province Yang Song (楊松) all have allegedly participated in China’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan had filed a criminal lawsuit with the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors’ Office against them when they visited Taiwan.
The central government should investigate the human rights record of these Chinese officials when checking their applications to enter Taiwan, Kang said.
Adding that Kaohsiung City is a modern metropolis that protects human rights, Kang said both the city and private organizations should therefore highlight the universality of human rights. If it is discovered that Chinese officials planning to visit Kaohsiung have a track record of violating human rights or if they have been charged and are being tried in court, such officials should not be invited, welcomed or given any support, she said.
While Falun Gong practitioners are suffering heavy persecution by the CCP, the motion is not aimed at pleasing the Falun Gong; no one who is guilty of persecuting anyone else should be welcomed to Kaohsiung, she said.
“I am very excited over the fact that the motion was unanimously passed by both the pan-green and pan-blue camps,” Kang added.
DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Chou Lin-wen (周玲玟) said that while China was important to the global economy, it ignores human rights and democracy.
“Kaohsiung is a friendly city but many people don’t know very much about CCP persecution and that is why it is necessary to ask the central government to control these issues,” she said.
Expressing a wish that every tourist area in Taiwan reveal the truth to Chinese tourists, she added: “Only by traveling to Taiwan will they be able to see the persecution that underlies the Chinese economy.”
Falun Dafa in Taiwan welcomed the motion and called on each level of government to take a close look at the issue.
Cheng Chi-mei (鄭其美), a representative of the movement, said it was shameful to see Chinese officials coming to Taiwan shaking hands with Taiwanese and receiving expensive gifts with blood on their hands.
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 —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS