Two spectators who attended games during the 2001 Asian Women's Soccer Championships in Taipei yesterday accused former Taipei mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of lying, saying Taipei police had told them they could not bring the national flag to the event.
Showing pictures taken during the game, Huang Shu-chun (
"I feel so sad that in my own country I could not bring the national flag to an event," Huang said at the Taipei City Council.
Wu said to take the flag into the stadium they had cut it into four pieces so that police would not find it.
Huang said Ma's contention that the city government had never banned people from taking the national flag to international games, or that police had used a "light" approach to dissuade people from using it, was a lie and asked that he make a public apology.
"The things you've done will leave a mark. Ma did ban us from carrying the national flag at the game. He failed to protect Taipei City and Taiwanese," she said.
Accompanying the duo, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (
In response, Ma said yesterday that the issue of the national flag showed that the DPP had joined forces with China to repress the Republic of China, adding that he would sue Yen and former DPP legislator Tuan Yi-kang (段宜康) for defamation.
Ma spokesman Lo Chih-chiang (羅智強) called on DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to encourage all DPP members and supporters to wave the national flag and sing the national anthem during its rallies on Saturday to show their passion for national symbols.
"If the DPP fails to do so, it would make it clear that it is cooperating with the Chinese Communist Party to repress the Republic of China, because both of them refuse to fly the national flag," he said.
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
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