The Kaohsiung City Government was criticized by city councilors across party lines yesterday over the removal of a student honor guard band’s national flag during a parade organized by the city government on Sunday to mark the one-year countdown to the World Games next year.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Lin Kuo-cheng (林國正), a Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member, criticized the organizers as deliberately belittling the nation.
Lin said that Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) had highlighted Taiwan’s independent status during a speech at the parade, while Ron Frohlich, president of the International World Games Association’s (IWGA) executive committee, addressed President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) as “President Ma.”
There was no justification for the city government’s asking the Kaohsiung Girls’ Senior High School band to remove the flag, he said.
Kaohsiung City Councilor Kang Yu-cheng (康裕成) of the Democratic Progressive Party demanded that the officials who made the decision be reprimanded.
Approached by the media, Chen denied she had given the order to remove the flag.
She said the city government was holding World Games-related events in accordance with its agreements with the IWGA and never intended to belittle the nation or express any political preference at such events. She promised to find who was responsible for the mishap.
Liu Hsiu-mei (劉秀梅), deputy director-general of the city’s Bureau of Cultural Affairs, which organized the parade, said yesterday the bureau had not been aware of the flag being taken down and did not know who had given the order.
Asked for comment, World Games Kaohsiung Organizing Committee chief executive officer Hsu Chao-chuan (�?�) said the city government and the IWGA had agreed in writing that the national flags of participants at the games should not appear at official World Games events.
City officials asked that the student band not display the flag to avoid controversy, she said.
However, Kaohsiung City Councilor Huang Po-lin (黃柏霖) of the KMT said he did not understand why the city government would refer to the agreement, as the parade was not an official World Games sports event.
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