A Falun Gong practitioner and former classmate of Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Zhang Mengye (
"In this free country [Taiwan], I appeal to my old classmate [Hu Jintao] to make the right decision for his administration by respecting Chinese people's right and religious beliefs and to stop destroying the morals of the people," Zhang said.
Zhang and his wife Luo Muluan (
Before being arrested and sentenced to two years in a forced labor camp, Zhang was a former senior lecturer at Guangdong Provincial Electric Power School.
"My wife and I were arrested unexpectedly in January 2000 while asking police officers stationed near Tiananmen Square to deliver a letter to the Chinese Communist Party pleading for the rights of Falun Gong practitioners," he said.
Zhang said that while in detention he was once handcuffed to a tree for three consecutive days in an agonizing position in which he could neither squat nor stand.
Zhang was re-arrested in May 2002 and sent to a brainwashing center in Guangzhou City, where he said he was tied up and dunked head-first into a dirty toilet bowl, causing him to swallow the foul water.
He also brought a charge against Tsinghua University, where he and Hu had studied together, saying that it cooperated with the Chinese government to stamp out the Falun Gong.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but