The Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ) released a statement on Monday accusing the government of restricting press freedom as it prepared to welcome Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Strait (ARATS) Chairman Chen Yunlin (陳雲林).
At least two verbal and physical clashes have occurred between local journalists and law enforcement personnel safeguarding Chen and other members of the ARATS delegation since they arrived on Monday.
Cheng Chieh-wen (鄭傑文), a photojournalist affiliated with the Central News Agency (CNA), was dragged away by national security agents at the Grand Hotel on Sunday while he was standing within the designated press area.
Yesterday, reporters engaged in verbal disputes with security officers over press areas that had been changed without prior notice.
“The ATJ strongly condemns security personnel for violently dragging and pushing reporters, and demands that the government explain such incidents and apologize to the CNA journalist,” the statement said.
“Press freedom cannot be compromised,” the ATJ statement said. “Although press passes had been issued to journalists, security officials still intervened and restricted media access. We regret such severe violations of press freedom.”
The ATJ urged the Government Information Office to better arrange media areas to protect press freedom during the next few days of Chen’s visit.
In related news, the Mainland Affairs Council said on Monday that more than 500 local and foreign reporters from 138 media outlets had received approval to cover Chen’s visit.
Among the 574 who received accreditation, 30 were from China, it said, adding that several major foreign news outlets were also covering the event.
However, a survey of major news outlets by the Taipei Times yesterday showed that the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune and the Guardian newspapers relied on Edward Wong’s reporting from Beijing, while Canada’s Globe and Mail and the Australian relied on reporting by Associated Press (AP) and Agence France-Presse respectively. France’s Le Monde, the US-based Christian Science Monitor and UK-based Independent were not covering the event.
While the BBC carried a report with a Taipei dateline, CBS News and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp did not report on the event, while CNN relied on AP and Qatar-based al-Jazeera used various news agencies.
The majority of major international news outlets — those that have the budgets to dispatch reporters to cover special events — therefore did not send a correspondent.
Meanwhile, asked by the Taipei Times to comment on the number of foreign correspondents present at major Chen venues, such as the Grand Hotel and Taipei 101, Taipei Foreign Correspondents Club president Max Hirsch said it was in “the few dozens,” adding that he had dealt with “many complaints” by foreign reporters about lack of access to the venues.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
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
‘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
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
RSS