The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) is pushing the legislature to pass a refugee law in the hope that asylum seekers from China, Hong Kong, Macau and Tibet will be able to stay legally in Taiwan, MAC Vice Chairman Liu Te-hsun (劉德勳) said yesterday.
If the law clears the legislative floor, it would provide a legal basis for the government to handle affairs related to refugees and give people a clear concept of refugee issues, Liu said.
Currently, most refugees seeking asylum in Taiwan are from Tibet or are descendants of the remnants of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) armies that were stranded in northern Thailand following the defeat of the KMT in the Chinese Civil War in 1949.
Two Chinese democracy activists, Cai Lujun (蔡陸軍) and Wu Yalin (吳亞林), have also sought sanctuary, Liu said.
Cai sneaked into Taiwan last year and was held for six months at the Hsinchu detention center for illegal Chinese immigrants, while Wu sought political asylum after he arrived last year as a tourist, Liu said. Both have now obtained temporary resident status, he added.
The two men came under the media spotlight last September when they scaled the wall of the American Institute in Taiwan compound in Taipei to request political asylum in the US.
As Taiwan does not have a political refugee or asylum law, the government has not been able to grant political asylum to the two Chinese political activists, but they have been allowed to remain in the country temporarily on a humanitarian basis, Liu said.
The MAC is providing a monthly stipend of between NT$10,000 and NT$20,000 to help with their living expenses because they are not allowed to work, Liu said, adding that this would continue to be a financial burden on the agency as an additional expenditure.
The MAC hopes that the law will soon be passed to allow political asylum seekers to gain resident status and allow them to seek work once they are certified as refugees, he said.
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
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