China needs to make serious efforts to deliver on the failed pledge it made to the international community in 2001 to win the Olympic bid, a group of human rights activists said at a torch relay in Taipei yesterday.
The torch transfer drew a massive crowd, including athletes, human right activists and political figures.
“We hope [this relay will] attract the world’s attention to China’s oppression of its people. The Olympics is a peaceful event, which directly contradicts what China is doing to human rights activists, Falun Gong members and Tibet,” Taiwan Falun Gong Association chairman Chang Ching-hsi (張清溪) said.
The human-rights torch was first lit on Aug. 9 in Athens, Greece, by the Coalition to Investigate the Prosecution of Falun Gong in China and has since traveled to 34 countries, collecting 589,624 supportive signatures, with an eventual goal of reaching Hong Kong just before the Games, Chang said.
“In order to host the Olympics, China promised the world to cease its notorious oppression against its people in 2001. Here we are in 2008, and instead of improvements, we find only worse neglect of human dignity and rights,” Chang said.
Human rights lawyer Tung Wen-hsun (董文薰) said Taiwanese should be especially concerned with this deterioration, compared with the rest of the world, because there are 1,400 Chinese missiles aimed at them.
Drawing statistics from her book The Dawn Chorus — A Sound That Wakes the World, Tung said a direct correlation existed between human rights conditions and military safety in Taiwan.
“From 2000 to 2008, the number of Chinese missiles aimed our way has increased from 200 to 1,400 — and the same rate of increase had been observed in their number of human organ harvests, mass acts of environmental destruction and wrongful tortures inflicted upon Falun Gong members,” she said. “The more extreme the measures China’s leaders employ on their own people, the more severe the attack you can expect them to deploy to take down Taiwan should a war break out.”
Athletes going to China for the Games can play a part in the pursuit for human rights improvements in China by acting as “peace ambassadors” to the Chinese people, human-rights torch representative Peng Wei-yau (彭偉堯) said.
“By going to the games, athletes can make known to Chinese people the type of oppression they are under, and the value of freedom,” he said.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
Many Chinese spouses required to submit proof of having renounced their Chinese household registration have either completed the process or provided affidavits ahead of the June 30 deadline, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. Of the 12,146 people required to submit the proof, 5,534 had done so as of Wednesday, MAC deputy head and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said. Another 2,572 people who met conditions for exemption or deferral from submitting proof of deregistration — such as those with serious illnesses or injuries — have submitted affidavits instead, he said. “As long as individuals are willing to cooperate with the legal
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
Taiwan's Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) said Saturday that she would not be intimidated by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), following reports that Chinese agents planned to ram her car during a visit to the Czech Republic last year. "I had a great visit to Prague & thank the Czech authorities for their hospitality & ensuring my safety," Hsiao said on social media platform X. "The CCP's unlawful activities will NOT intimidate me from voicing Taiwan's interests in the international community," she wrote. Hsiao visited the Czech Republic on March 18 last year as vice president-elect and met with Czech Senate leadership, including
RSS