Dozens of members of Taipei’s New Female Immigrant Care Association yesterday staged a protest outside city hall to demand an apology from Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) over his recent off-the-cuff remark describing the foreign spouses of Taiwanese men as “imported foreign brides.”
“I came from China and have been married with a Taiwanese man for 14 years. There are more than 480,000 immigrants in Taiwan. We are human beings, not some products for sale,” association executive secretary Li Xia (李霞) said as she led the protest, which consisted of women like her from China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand.
Li was referring to remarks Ko made during a gender forum on Saturday, when he commented that he was bewildered by the fact that there were more single men than women in the nation, given that “the nation has imported 300,000 foreign brides.”
Photo: Chang Chia-ming, Taipei Times
Ko declined to further elaborate on his comments when asked by reporters on the sidelines of the event whether the use of the term “import” was appropriate when describing foreign spouses.
“Today is International Women’s Day, but it is the hardest day for immigrant females in Taiwan. Ko’s remarks were discriminatory against women like us, and those words kept me up all night last night,” Li said yesterday.
“We demand that Ko issue an apology to new immigrant women and urge other women’s rights groups and the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) Women’s Development Committee to join in condemnation of the mayor,” she said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City councilors Lee Yen-hsiu (李彥秀) and Angela Ying (應曉薇) also attended the protest.
Ying urged Ko to acknowledge his mistake, while Lee said that immigrants are also a part of the city, and that the mayor should treat these people with equality rather than discrimination.
Later yesterday, Ko said he did not mean any harm when speaking at the forum and admitted that there was plenty of room for improvement in the language he used.
Asked if he wanted to apologize for his comments, Ko said he said that he had said many things at the forum, but only two words were taken out of context and then put under the magnifying glass.
“I am confused and troubled by this kind of social phenomena,” Ko said.
“If we believe someone does not harbor malice toward a subject, then there is no need to blow it out of proportion,” Ko said, but added that he would correct any mistakes that he made.
Later yesterday, when told that his mother, Ho Jui-ying (何瑞英), also believed that he should apologize for it, Ko said: “I will apologize then.”
Asked to comment in a separate setting, DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said that “import” was not the best choice of word to be used in the situation.
“[Ko] should be especially cautious choosing his words,” Tsai said. “However, I think he would be more considerate after we remind him repeatedly.”
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), spokeswoman Yang Chih-yu (楊智伃) and Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介) would be summoned by police for questioning for leading an illegal assembly on Thursday evening last week, Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) said today. The three KMT officials led an assembly outside the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office, a restricted area where public assembly is not allowed, protesting the questioning of several KMT staff and searches of KMT headquarters and offices in a recall petition forgery case. Chu, Yang and Hsieh are all suspected of contravening the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法) by holding
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