Taiwan has made “significant” progress in improving rights for Muslims, the US Department of State said on Friday in its International Religious Freedom report for last year.
The report cited the Chinese-Muslim Association as saying: The “authorities were making significant progress in improving rights for Muslims,” such as by increasing the number of restaurants and hotels that cater to Muslims’ dietary requirements and establishing prayer rooms for them.
“The number of halal-certified restaurants and hotels increased from 120 to 160 during the year,” the report said. “Local authorities in Taoyuan, Taichung, [as well as] Yunlin, Chiayi and Yilan [counties] held Eid al-Fitr commemorations. Authorities built new prayer rooms at train stations, libraries and tourist destinations.”
The report mentioned remarks by Vice President Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) when he attended the canonization of Pope Paul VI and six other Catholic figures at St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican in October last year as an indication of Taiwan’s efforts in pushing for religious freedom.
“As a beacon of religious freedom and tolerance, Taiwan is committed to further strengthening ties with the Holy See via substantive cooperative initiatives spanning democracy, religious freedom and human rights,” the report quoted Chen as saying.
However, the report repeated the department’s concerns from last year that the Labor Standards Act (勞動基準法) does not allow a day off for migrant domestic workers and caregivers, many of whom are Muslims from Indonesia, limiting their ability to attend religious services.
The report mentioned an objection from the Chinese-Muslim Association against a move made by the Kaohsiung City Government to relocate remains from a Muslim cemetery in the city to develop the site into a park.
The association said that the relocation failed to follow Muslim tenets.
The city government said it held two public hearings and communicated with the Muslim community in Kaohsiung, and the majority of Muslims in the area had agreed to the relocation, according to the State Department’s report.
The city government said that it exhumed graves and moved the remains in accordance with Muslim tenets, and also sent a delegation to Malaysia to learn how to properly relocate Muslim cemeteries, according to the report.
The imam of the Kaohsiung Mosque also provided assistance for the relocation, the report quoted the city as saying.
The report also cited the Tibet Religious Foundation as saying that Tibetan Buddhist monks in Taiwan remained unable to obtain resident visas for religious work, despite the authorities typically granting visas to other religious practitioners for similar purposes.
“The monks had to fly to Thailand every two months to renew their visas,” the report said. “The monks did not have passports and instead traveled using Indian Identity Certificates issued to Tibetans who reside in India, but do not have Indian citizenship, and reportedly were valid for travel to all countries.”
The department said that the foundation reported harassment from the True Enlightenment Practitioners Association, a Taiwanese Buddhist organization that has received funds from China and propagated a message saying: “Tibetan Buddhism is not real Buddhism.”
In November last year, a court in Taiwan ordered the association to publish an apology, but it had not done so by the end of the year.
The government has said that all libel cases involving the Tibet Religious Foundation are closed.
DEATH THREAT: A MAC official said that it has urged Beijing to avoid creating barriers that would impede exchanges across the Strait, but it continues to do so People should avoid unnecessary travel to China after Beijing issued 22 guidelines allowing its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death “Taiwan independence separatists,” the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said yesterday as it raised its travel alert for China, including Hong Kong and Macau, to “orange.” The guidelines published last week “severely threaten the personal safety of Taiwanese traveling to China, Hong Kong and Macau,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) told a news conference in Taipei. “Following a comprehensive assessment, the government considers it necessary to elevate the travel alert to orange from yellow,” Liang said. Beijing has
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) yesterday said that the Chinese Communist Party was planning and implementing “major” reforms, ahead of a political conclave that is expected to put economic recovery high on the agenda. Chinese policymakers have struggled to reignite growth since late 2022, when restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic were lifted. The world’s second-largest economy is beset by a debt crisis in the property sector, persistently low consumption and high unemployment among young people. Policymakers “are planning and implementing major measures to further deepen reform in a comprehensive manner,” Xi said in a speech at the Great Hall
CIVIL DEFENSE: More reservists in alternative service would help establish a sound civil defense system for use in wartime and during natural disasters, Kuma Academy’s CEO said While a total of 120,000 reservists are expected to be called up for alternative reserve drills this year, compared with the 6,505 drilled last year, the number has been revised to 58,000 due to a postponed training date, Deputy Minster of the Interior Ma Shih-yuan (馬士元) said. In principle, the ministry still aims to call up 120,000 reservists for alternative reserve drills next year, he said, but the actual number would not be decided later until after this year’s evaluation. The increase follows a Legislative Yuan request that the Ministry of the Interior address low recruitment rates, which it made while reviewing
SOLUTIONS NEEDED: Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers due to population decline, the minister of economic affairs said in Washington President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration is considering a plan to import labor to deal with an impending shortage of engineers and other highly skilled workers, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said in Washington on Tuesday. Kuo was leading a delegation attending the SelectUSA Investment Summit. Taiwan must attract about 400,000 to 500,000 skilled foreign workers for high-end manufacturing jobs by 2040, he said. Ministry of Economic Affairs officials are still calculating the precise number of workers that are needed, as it works on loosening immigration restrictions and creating incentives, Kuo said. Taiwanese firms operating factories in the US and other countries would