Amnesty International Taiwan on Friday called on Taiwanese to help check Myanmar’s junta six months after a coup plunged the country into chaos.
ASEAN in April reached a five point “consensus” that calls for the cessation of hostilities in Myanmar, but has done little to stop the violence in the country, Amnesty International Taiwan secretary-general Chiu Ee-ling (邱伊翎) told a virtual news conference.
The news conference was part of an effort by the group to pressure East Asian countries into taking decisive steps toward condemning the Burmese junta.
A surge in COVID-19 cases in Myanmar this month has compounded the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country, Chiu added.
As of Friday, Myanmar had reported 258,870 COVID-19 cases and 6,459 deaths, according to the WHO.
Although not an ASEAN member, Taiwan is one of the few countries in East Asia where news conferences and protests can be held without fear of state interference, she said.
The public should lend Taiwan’s voice to Burmese residents in the nation in issuing calls for peace and for the junta to respect basic human rights, she added.
Taiwan’s business community should also refrain from engaging in transactions that could enable the Burmese junta to obtain arms in contravention of a non-binding UN resolution, she said.
Burmese troops are rounding up doctors in the country even as the country reports more than 5,000 cases daily, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said, adding that the junta has been seizing medical supplies earmarked for civilians.
The junta shoots unarmed people without provocation and then reports them as having died of COVID-19, he said.
“The legislature has expressed its support for the people of Myanmar in an April resolution and we urge the Burmese military to refrain from using force against civilians,” he said.
Lawmakers, financial regulators and foreign affairs officials are monitoring the public and private sectors to prevent Taiwanese capital from being utilized to finance the junta, he said.
Amnesty International Thailand secretary-general Piyanut Kotsan said the Thai government has repeatedly obstructed humanitarian efforts to aid refugees while surreptitiously furnishing the Burmese junta with supplies.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,