The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has issued a stern protest over the WHO’s decision to deny Taiwanese news outlets access to the World Health Assembly (WHA), the annual meeting of its decisionmaking body that opened yesterday in Geneva, Switzerland, calling on the WHO to respect press freedom.
The ministry issued a statement protesting and condemning the UN body’s decision not to grant media accreditation to journalists from Taiwan.
It also called on WHO member countries and international media to demand that the WHO respect and protect press freedom, adding that the organization is serving China’s political objectives by depriving Taiwanese journalists of their right to cover news.
Photo: CNA
It is the second year in a row that Taiwan has failed to obtain an invitation to the WHA due to China’s obstruction, the ministry said.
Due to Taiwan’s exclusion from the global health network, Taiwan was unable to acquire timely disease information during the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, which cost dozens of lives, the ministry said.
The WHO, as the world’s leading health organization, should safeguard the right to health of all human beings, including by providing access to health information, the ministry said, adding that the WHO’s refusal to accredit Taiwanese reporters amounts to a serious violation of the universal human rights enshrined in the UN Charter.
The ministry said it would continue to solicit support from Taiwan’s diplomatic allies and countries friendly to Taiwan, asking them to lodge protests with the WHO and demand that it not cave in to political pressure from China.
Last week, US non-governmental organization Freedom House also weighed in on the issue of accreditation refusal.
Arch Puddington, a fellow at the organization, said the WHO’s decision was “the latest in a series of capitulations by international agencies and private businesses to China’s censorship requirements.”
International Federation of Journalists president Philippe Leruth on Tuesday last week said that the decision was “unacceptable.”
He said he would write to the institutions responsible for the decision and urge them to honor the right of international media to cover the annual event.
Taiwan started seeking an invitation to the WHA in 1997 and was finally invited as an observer in 2009 when Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was president.
The nation was able to attend the WHA every year from 2009 to 2016, but since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 2016, Beijing has blocked the WHA from extending an invitation to Taiwan last year and this year.
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 decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS