The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday said its caucus would put forth a proposal in the legislature today to invite exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan after the government refused to grant him a visa last month.
President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration denied the Dalai Lama a visa to speak at the Asia-Pacific regional conference of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women, saying the timing was not “opportune.”
The refusal reflects Ma’s kowtowing to China and pro-Beijing stance while sacrificing his previous pledge to uphold human rights, TSU Legislator Huang Wen-ling (黃文玲) told a press conference.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
Huang said her party could not turn a blind eye to the deteriorating human rights situation in Tibet, where at least 94 Tibetans had set themselves on fire and died over the past three years.
The proposal is to seek a legislative resolution to demand the government officially condemn Beijing’s brutal oppression of Tibetans and establish a panel to probe into the growing number of self-immolations, she said.
“We would also like to invite the Dalai Lama to visit Taiwan to highlight the value the nation places on human rights,” Huang said.
Ma has ignored several issues, including human rights violations and the plight of political prisoners in China, since taking office in 2008, TSU Legislator Lin Shih-chia (林世嘉) said.
Taiwan should pay close attention to what is happening in China — in particular in Tibet — because “what is happening in Tibet now could happen to Taiwan in the future,” Lin said.
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