Protesters gathered outside the Hong Kong Economic, Trade and Cultural Office in Taipei yesterday to demand the release of imprisoned Hong Kong democracy advocates.
At the rally, a handful of International Socialist Forward members burned photographs of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥).
“We support the upgrade of Hong Kong’s democratic movement to include work and class strikes so its energy is condensed and moves toward shaking up the system and forcefully striking back against the Chinese Communist Party’s [CCP] authoritarian regime,” group member Vincent Hsu (許偉育) said.
He led participants in shouting: “Today’s Hong Kong, Tomorrow’s Taiwan.”
“We can see that the government and courts of Hong Kong have a clear plan to suppress democracy movements and make their voices disappear,” he said, calling for the release of political prisoners, withdrawal of lawsuits against protesters and the restoration of six pro-democracy Hong Kong lawmakers’ positions.
The lawmakers were disqualified by the court after modifying their oaths of allegiance to China during a swearing-in ceremony.
International Socialist Forward is a branch of the international Trotskyist group Committee for a Workers’ International, an organization whose Hong Kong branch, Socialist Action, has endorsed disqualified lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung (梁國雄).
Socialist Action has closely cooperated with Leung’s League of Social Democrats party in protests and elections, Hsu said.
While the Committee for a Workers’ International and affiliated groups are differentiated from many Hong Kong democracy groups by their support for massive nationalization and socialist welfare policies, their common opposition to the CCP’s “capitalist one-party dictatorship” leaves substantial room for cooperation, he said.
“We support their freedom of speech and democratic rights, but that does not mean that we completely agree with their stances,” he said, citing Hong Kong democracy advocate Joshua Wong’s (黃之鋒) “illusions about the US” that “if we did not first support Hong Kong’s democracy movement, it would cut us off from the masses.”
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
The Civil Aviation Administration yesterday said that it is considering punishments for China Airlines (CAL) and Starlux Airlines for making hard landings and overworking their cabin crew when the nation was hit by Typhoon Kong-rey in October last year. The civil aviation authority launched an investigation after media reported that many airlines were forced to divert their flights to different airports or go around after failing to land when the typhoon affected the nation on Oct. 30 and 31 last year. The agency reviewed 503 flights dispatched by Taiwanese airlines during those two days, as well as weather data, flight hours
Three people have had their citizenship revoked after authorities confirmed that they hold Chinese ID cards, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Deputy Minister and spokesman Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said yesterday. Two of the three people were featured in a recent video about Beijing’s “united front” tactics by YouTuber Pa Chiung (八炯) and Taiwanese rapper Chen Po-yuan (陳柏源), including Su Shi-en (蘇士恩), who displayed a Chinese ID card in the video, and taekwondo athlete Lee Tung-hsien (李東憲), who mentioned he had obtained a Chinese ID card in a telephone call with Chen, Liang told the council’s weekly news conference. Lee, who reportedly worked in
A relatively large earthquake may strike within the next two weeks, following a magnitude 5.2 temblor that shook Taitung County this morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. An earthquake struck at 8:18am today 10.2km west of Taitung County Hall in Taitung City at a relatively shallow depth of 6.5km, CWA data showed. The largest intensity of 4 was felt in Taitung and Pingtung counties, which received an alert notice, while areas north of Taichung did not feel any shaking, the CWA said. The earthquake was the result of the collision between the Philippine Plate and the Eurasian Plate, the agency said, adding
RSS