Advocacy groups pushing for democracy and media freedom yesterday urged President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to seek a cross-strait agreement on media freedom and called on Beijing to stop censoring news reporting.
The agreement should include protection of the freedom of news gathering, personal safety, news reporting, the Internet, publications, personal actions and no governmental interference in media operations, advocates told a press conference organized by Cross-Strait Agreement Watch (CSAW), Taiwan Democracy Watch (TDW) and the Association of Taiwan Journalists (ATJ).
Safeguarding media freedom has become a salient issue and should be the top priority, because Beijing has repeatedly proposed the establishment of media institutions for Taiwan and China in each other’s territory, TDW convener Hsu Wei-chun (徐偉群) said.
“Taiwan’s media freedom should not be a bargaining chip on the cross-strait negotiation table,” Hsu said.
If Beijing keeps its censorship policy in place, cross-strait media exchanges would be meaningless, because various laws in China contained definite regulations on news censorship, Lai Chung-chiang (賴中強) of CSAW said.
ATJ president Chen Hsiao-yi (陳曉宜) said Beijing regularly grants access to news gathering to selected Taiwanese media, a strategy to control the media which could prevent the truth from being reported, and that was why media institutions across the Strait should not be established before the right to report news is protected.
The Mainland Affairs Council responded to the call in a press release, saying the council has again called on Beijing to respect and protect freedom of the media.
The government has laid out the priority issues in media-related cross-strait exchanges, including ending China’s blocking of Taiwanese news Web sites and an agreement on the publication of Taiwanese magazines in China, it said.
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
Ferry operators are planning to provide a total of 1,429 journeys between Taiwan proper and its offshore islands to meet increased travel demand during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday, the Maritime and Port Bureau said yesterday. The available number of ferry journeys on eight routes from Saturday next week to Feb. 2 is expected to meet a maximum transport capacity of 289,414 passengers, the bureau said in a news release. Meanwhile, a total of 396 journeys on the "small three links," which are direct ferries connecting Taiwan's Kinmen and Lienchiang counties with China's Fujian Province, are also being planned to accommodate
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS