Taichung City Mayor and former foreign minister Jason Hu (
"Hu was shocked by the campaign literature and said that it was not a good way of doing things," said Huang Wen-ming (
However, KMT officials also said that Hu, the director general of the pan-blue campaign headquarters in Taichung, did not take any action to stop the circulation of the poster or prevent future campaign literature from using similar material.
"The poster was only distributed once, mostly as newspaper inserts. Hu never asked the campaign headquarters to put a halt on distribution or to recall the posters that had already been given out," said Chen Ching-fu (
Featuring pictures of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, al-Qaeda terror figurehead Osama bin Laden and the destruction of one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City, the campaign poster warns the public against voting for President Chen Shui-bian (
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (
"Chen has spent his life fighting for democracy. To call him a dictator or terrorist is an insult. It is an insult not just to Chen, but to all those who support democracy," Hsiao said.
"The use of images from an atrocity on the poster is highly inappropriate and is culturally insensitive," she said, adding that Hu had previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
GUGGENHEIM
Meanwhile, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, with whom Hu has been in difficult negotiations for months over establishing a satellite museum in Taichung, said yesterday through press officer Jennifer Russo that it would not comment on Hu or the KMT-People First Party alliance using images of the destruction of the Twin Towers or Adolf Hitler.
Hu must still secure a significant proportion of funds from the central government for the museum project to proceed.
On Thursday, the Taipei Times contacted several representative offices for their response to the endorsement of the "terrorism" poster by the former foreign minister.
David Miller, an assistant information officer from the American Institute in Taiwan, declined to comment on the content of the poster, saying that it was an "internal affair."
Maggie Yeh (
The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the US killed 68 British nationals.
Howard Lin (
Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China when traveling in countries with close ties to Beijing, Taiwan Association of University Professors deputy chairman Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said on Friday. Chen’s comments came after China on Friday last week announced new judicial guidelines targeting Taiwanese independence advocates. Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Djibouti are among the countries where Taiwanese could risk being extradited to China, he said. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Thursday elevated the travel alert for China, Hong Kong and Macau to “orange” after Beijing announced its guidelines to “severely punish Taiwanese independence diehards for splitting the country and inciting secession.” Extradition treaties
Taiwan and Thailand have signed an agreement to promote and protect bilateral investment and trade, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Trade Negotiations (OTN) said on Friday. The agreement on “Promotion and Protection of Investments” was signed by Representative to Thailand Chang Chun-fu (張俊福) and Thailand Trade and Economic Office in Taipei executive director Narong Boonsatheanwong on Thursday, the OTN said in a news release. Thailand has become the fifth trading partner to sign an investment agreement with Taiwan since 2016, following earlier agreements with the Philippines, India, Vietnam and Canada, the OTN said. The deal marks a significant milestone in the development of
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant