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.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
EVA Air is prohibiting the use of portable chargers on board all flights starting from Saturday, while China Airlines is advising passengers not to use them, following the lead of South Korean airlines. Current regulations prohibit portable chargers and lithium batteries from check-in luggage and require them to be properly packed in carry-on baggage, EVA Air said. To improve onboard safety, portable chargers and spare lithium batteries would be prohibited from use on all fights starting on Saturday, it said. Passengers are advised to fully charge electronic devices before boarding and use the AC and USB charging outlets at their seat, it said. South
WAR SIMULATION: The developers of the board game ‘2045’ consulted experts and analysts, and made maps based on real-life Chinese People’s Liberation Army exercises To stop invading Chinese forces seizing Taiwan, board gamer Ruth Zhong chooses the nuclear option: Dropping an atomic bomb on Taipei to secure the nation’s freedom and her victory. The Taiwanese board game 2045 is a zero-sum contest of military strategy and individual self-interest that puts players on the front lines of a simulated Chinese attack. Their battlefield game tactics would determine the theoretical future of Taiwan, which in the real world faces the constant threat of a Chinese invasion. “The most interesting part of this game is that you have to make continuous decisions based on the evolving situation,
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
RSS