Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday she would not be responding to a media furor over her sexual orientation.
“There is nothing wrong with any gender, sexual orientation or marital status. Nobody has the right to question another [on this],” Tsai said in a short -300-word public statement.
Tsai said she would use the opportunity presented by the furor to promote awareness about discrimination, suggesting that an individual’s right to privacy concerning their sexual orientation was akin to a human rights issue. She said she would work to “eliminate gender discrimination in Taiwan.”
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“I will lead Taiwan as a country that respects human rights and is more accepting. I will also work to ensure that minority groups experience the same quality of life, happiness and respect on this piece of land as everyone else,” she added.
Former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) drew criticism on Thursday after he called on Tsai, who is single, to clarify her sexual orientation, saying that voters needed a “clear answer” before voting for her next year.
“She needs to be true to herself, her body, in order to be true to her beliefs and her country,” Shih said.
Lawmakers across party lines, as well as gay rights and feminist groups, have come to Tsai’s defense over the past two days, saying that it is irrelevant for the presidential hopeful to disclose such personal details.
The Taiwan Women’s Link on Friday called on Shih to either explain the relevancy of his remarks or “apologize to all single women, gays and female politicians.”
Tsai’s competitors in the DPP primaries also said they did not believe a candidate should be questioned on their sexual orientation.
“Taiwan cannot be like this and politics should not be like this. I do not think that it’s a good idea,” Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told reporters yesterday.
Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said he was “astonished” by Shih’s questions, which he called a violation of Tsai’s privacy.
In the statement, Tsai said she would “definitely not” respond to a line of questioning she characterized as “surprising” — considering Shih’s past work in Taiwan’s democracy and human rights movement.
“Because if I did, it would amount to recognizing his right to question anybody [on the issue],” Tsai said.
Asked whether she felt angered by the remarks at a later setting, she said she “wasn’t angry, did not care and did not plan to respond on the issue any further.”
Tsai, who has temporairily stepped down as DPP chairperson, has not been linked to anybody romantically in the past decade she has been a public figure.
The questions come at a sensitive time for her, with two weeks left before the telephone polls used to settle the primaries between April 25 and 29.
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