Falun Gong practitioners yesterday staged a mass sit-in in front of Taipei City Hall to mark the 21st anniversary of the start of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of the group’s members, calling on the world to recognize the CCP’s crime.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the CCP’s arbitrary passage of national security legislation for Hong Kong and its violation of press freedom by banning reports of excessive water levels along the Yangtze River, which caused flooding in 27 Chinese provinces, the world has woken up to the CCP’s true evil nature, Taiwan Falun Dafa Association president Chang Chin-hwa (張錦華) told a news conference.
Dubbing this year “the year of awakening,” Chang said Falun Gong has gathered signatures from 550 lawmakers from 27 nations for a joint statement to condemn the CCP’s brutal infringement of human rights and to recognize the efforts of Falun Gong.
Of the 550 politicians, 34 are Taiwanese legislators from various parties, which places the nation fourth in terms of the number of signatures gathered, she said.
Hopefully, the world will realize that now is the time to choose virtue and justice, to eliminate the malicious party that is the CCP and to liberate the more than 1 billion Chinese, she said.
“The Qing Dynasty 120 years ago waged a war against other nations and was obliterated. Today, China is also waging a war against other nations with viruses and its reign of terror,” New School For Democracy chairman Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) said.
With the pandemic, Beijing’s suppression of pro-democracy Hong Kong demonstrators and the severe flooding throughout China, he believes that the CCP’s days are numbered, he said.
The US administration is mulling barring CCP members and their families from entering the US, Tseng added.
The US House of Representatives in May passed a measure that seeks to punish Chinese officials for detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, he said.
Tseng said he is glad that the US fired the first salvo against the CCP’s wrongdoings and human rights atrocities, and hopes the rest of the world will join in the sanctions against the CCP.
Falun Gong has long been collating information on former CCP members, some of whom did not request anonymity when they revealed the party’s vices to Falun Gong, he said.
This information is invaluable and hopefully will offer the international community a clearer roadmap in its efforts to sanction the CCP, he said.
After the guests made speeches, Falun Gong practitioners lit candles and mourned in silence the estimated more than 4,500 fellow practitioners who have reportedly been killed by the CCP.
Before the sit-in, about 1,000 Falun Gong members marched in the city’s Xinyi District (信義) to raise awareness of their cause.
IDENTITY: Compared with other platforms, TikTok’s algorithm pushes a ‘disproportionately high ratio’ of pro-China content, a study has found Young Taiwanese are increasingly consuming Chinese content on TikTok, which is changing their views on identity and making them less resistant toward China, researchers and politicians were cited as saying by foreign media. Asked to suggest the best survival strategy for a small country facing a powerful neighbor, students at National Chia-Yi Girls’ Senior High School said “Taiwan must do everything to avoid provoking China into attacking it,” the Financial Times wrote on Friday. Young Taiwanese between the ages of 20 and 24 in the past were the group who most strongly espoused a Taiwanese identity, but that is no longer
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake and several aftershocks battered southern Taiwan early this morning, causing houses and roads to collapse and leaving dozens injured and 50 people isolated in their village. A total of 26 people were reported injured and sent to hospitals due to the earthquake as of late this morning, according to the latest Ministry of Health and Welfare figures. In Sising Village (西興) of Chiayi County's Dapu Township (大埔), the location of the quake's epicenter, severe damage was seen and roads entering the village were blocked, isolating about 50 villagers. Another eight people who were originally trapped inside buildings in Tainan
‘ARMED GROUP’: Two defendants used Chinese funds to form the ‘Republic of China Taiwan Military Government,’ posing a threat to national security, prosecutors said A retired lieutenant general has been charged after using funds from China to recruit military personnel for an “armed” group that would assist invading Chinese forces, prosecutors said yesterday. The retired officer, Kao An-kuo (高安國), was among six people indicted for contravening the National Security Act (國家安全法), the High Prosecutors’ Office said in a statement. The group visited China multiple times, separately and together, from 2018 to last year, where they met Chinese military intelligence personnel for instructions and funding “to initiate and develop organizations for China,” prosecutors said. Their actions posed a “serious threat” to “national security and social stability,” the statement
NATURAL INTERRUPTION: As cables deteriorate, core wires snap in progression along the cable, which does not happen if they are hit by an anchor, an official said Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) immediately switched to a microwave backup system to maintain communications between Taiwan proper and Lienchiang County (Matsu) after two undersea cables malfunctioned due to natural deterioration, the Ministry of Digital Affairs told an emergency news conference yesterday morning. Two submarine cables connecting Taiwan proper and the outlying county — the No. 2 and No. 3 Taiwan-Matsu cables — were disconnected early yesterday morning and on Wednesday last week respectively, the nation’s largest telecom said. “After receiving the report that the No. 2 cable had failed, the ministry asked Chunghwa Telecom to immediately activate a microwave backup system, with
RSS