A London-based rights group said yesterday that China was preparing to execute a Chinese businessman convicted of spying for Taiwan, and urged Beijing to halt the execution.
Amnesty International urged China not to execute businessman and medical scientist Wo Weihan, who was sentenced to death in May last year for spying for Taiwan, the group said in a statement.
Wo was found “guilty of discussing the health status of senior Chinese leaders, which is considered to be top secret, and of sending information from a classified magazine available in the Chinese Academy of Sciences library,” it said.
After refusing visitation rights for nearly four years, the Beijing High Court on Tuesday told Wo’s family to apply for a visit within seven days, the statement said.
“This sudden move suggests that ... the Beijing Municipal Higher People’s Court is preparing to execute Wo Weihan,” it said.
Calls to the High Court went unanswered yesterday.
In April, Austrian President Heinz Fischer appealed to Beijing to spare Wo, who formerly lived in Austria.
Amnesty said Wo was detained in Beijing in 2005, and according to the court verdict he confessed to the charges while in detention.
But his family said the confession was made in the absence of a lawyer and that he later recanted his confession, it said.
Amnesty “expresses concern that Wo Weihan may not have received a fair trial according to international standards, particularly as he was not allowed prompt access to a lawyer,” the statement said.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
National Kaohsiung University of Science and Technology (NKUST) yesterday promised it would increase oversight of use of Chinese in course materials, following a social media outcry over instances of simplified Chinese characters being used, including in a final exam. People on Threads wrote that simplified Chinese characters were used on a final exam and in a textbook for a translation course at the university, while the business card of a professor bore the words: “Taiwan Province, China.” Photographs of the exam, the textbook and the business card were posted with the comments. NKUST said that other members of the faculty did not see
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
EARTHQUAKE: Taipei and New Taipei City accused a construction company of ignoring the Circular MRT’s original design, causing sections to shift by up to 92cm The Taipei and New Taipei City governments yesterday said they would seek NT$1.93 billion (US$58.6 million) in compensation from the company responsible for building the Circular MRT Line, following damage sustained during an earthquake in April last year that had shuttered a section for months. BES Engineering Corp, a listed company under Core Pacific Group, was accused of ignoring the original design when constructing the MRT line, resulting in negative shear strength resistance and causing sections of the rail line between Jhonghe (中和) and Banciao (板橋) districts to shift by up to 92cm during the April 3 earthquake. The pot bearings on
RSS