With Chinese purchasing delegations set to resume visits to Taiwan next week, including one led by Beijing Mayor Guo Jinlong (郭金龍), human rights organizations recently sent a letter to government agencies accusing Guo of human rights violations and asking that he be denied entry.
The Taiwan Falun Dafa Institute and the Taiwan Friends of Tibet alleged that Guo, who had assumed important government posts in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, Anhui Province and Beijing, had violated human rights by planning and ordering the oppression of members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement as well as Tibetans.
Data from the Taiwan Friends of Tibet and the institute shows that Guo was transferred to Tibet as the vice secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Tibetan Committee at the end of 1993, and in 2000 was made secretary of the committee.
During the same period, the oppression of Tibetans by the Chinese government reached its apogee and because of Guo’s success in oppressing Tibetans, he was promoted to CCP secretary of the Anhui Provincial Committee in 2006, the groups said.
In November 2007, Guo was transferred to Beijing and became the city’s mayor in January 2008, as well as executive president of the Olympics organizing committee for the Beijing Olympics.
Beijing authorities also committed human rights violations to ensure stability in the runup to the Olympics — measures that Guo is believed to have orchestrated, the groups alleged.
They called on the Mainland Affairs Council and the National Immigration Agency to deny Guo entry into the country, adding that not only should the government verify whether Guo had perpetrated acts that violate human rights, they should also check whether team members accompanying Guo had perpetrated similar deeds.
The government should not give such Chinese officials access into the country, the two groups said.
Despite the groups’ protests, sources have said that the immigration agency had already approved the visa applications for Guo and his group, and that they would arrive in Taiwan as scheduled.
Translated by Jake Chung, Staff writer
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