The Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission should grant residency to stateless Tibetan refugees, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights said yesterday, also calling for the passage of a refugee act.
“There should be a system in place to determine whether people are stateless or refugees rather than dealing with them on a case-by-case basis. If their identity can be determined, they should be afforded protection,” association secretary-general Chiu E-ling (邱伊翎) said, adding that the current law affords no guarantees to the two groups.
Tibetan rights advocates and association members rallied outside the commission building in Taipei, demanding that residency be granted to 12 stateless Tibetans.
Chiu said the government had treated the 12 as illegal immigrants rather than as refugees or Tibetans in exile, when at least some of them had become trapped in the nation after their Nepalese passports were lost or expired.
There were also cases in which Tibetan’s Taiwanese spouses had divorced them, leaving them without identity papers, she said.
Tsultrim Thahchin — one of the 12 stateless Tibetans — said that some of them were forced to sleep on the streets and were unable to access medical treatment because of their status.
Nepal’s warming relations with China have led to Kathmandu implementing a more rigorous review of passport applications, including a recent declaration that it would not provide travel documents to Tibetan exiles, she said.
Lack of legal status also made them reluctant to report mistreatment in the workplace, he said.
Association office director Yen Szu-yu (顏思妤) said that while an amnesty had previously been granted to Tibetans who overstayed visas without residency rights, a sunset clause prevented those who arrived after 2008 from applying.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash
FLU CONTINUES: Hospitals reported 101,091 visits for flu-like illnesses last week, while 68 severe cases and 16 flu-related deaths were also reported, the CDC said The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported 932 hospitalizations due to COVID-19 and 64 related deaths for last week, adding that the number of people who had contracted new SARS-CoV-2 subvariants KP.2 and LB.1 has increased. The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 increased from 815 in the previous week to 932 last week, while 90 percent of the 64 deceased were aged 65 or older, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. JN.1 was still the dominant variant among local and imported cases in the past four weeks, while KP.2 was the second-most common, Lin said. Cases with the LB.1 subvariant