The producer of an online talk show on Wednesday apologized following backlash against comments made by a guest ridiculing a disabled lawyer and politician’s appearance at a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) election rally.
On Monday’s episode of The Night Night Show with Hello (賀瓏夜夜秀), guest Wang Zhian (王志安), a Chinese investigative journalist who is now living in Tokyo after being blacklisted by Beijing, appeared on the program to discuss Taiwan’s election and other topics.
Wang criticized the rallies put on by the major parties, saying they even “pull disabled people up [onto the stage] to rouse sympathy.”
Photo: Screengrab from YouTube
He then mimicked the speech made at a DPP rally by Chen Chun-han (陳俊翰), a DPP legislator-at-large candidate and human rights lawyer who has spinal muscular atrophy.
A producer of the show named Hawkins (霍金) in the comments of the video said that the disrespectful clip made it into the program due to a production oversight, and an apology has been made to Chen.
The production team would be more careful with editing in the future, he said, apologizing to viewers for any trouble caused by the clip.
Chen on Wednesday said it is “absurd” for Wang to ridicule Taiwan’s elections when China “does not even have the freedom to hold elections.”
A progressive society should recognize the dignity and value of people with disabilities as human beings, he told reporters.
In China, people with disabilities are viewed as unable to have their own ideas or stand in elections, and are only used as tools for sympathy, he said.
Yet in Taiwan, anyone who is of age and has ideas is free to participate in politics, he added.
Chen said he was mostly disappointed by the reaction of the audience and host of the program who laughed at Wang’s comment, saying that the host should have immediately stopped him.
Hopefully, this incident could help society reflect on its extant discrimination against people with disabilities, he added.
Responding to the backlash on X, Wang initially refused to apologize, saying it would not bother him if he could not return to Taiwan because of the incident.
“I’m not even afraid of the Chinese Communist Party, how could I be afraid of these little ‘green communists’?” he wrote.
However, he later on Wednesday said he was willing to make an apology to Chen if he felt offended by his comments.
“But this is not contradictory to my condemnation of the DPP’s use of disabled people as an election tool,” he added.
Additional reporting by Hu Yu-jou and CNA
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