Activist groups led by the Economic Democracy Union and Taiwan Citizen Front gathered outside the Legislative Yuan yesterday in a protest condemning the opposition parties for forcing votes on controversial amendment bills.
The legislature yesterday passed amendments to the Satellite Broadcasting Act (衛星廣播電視法) as well as amendments to the Act Governing the Handling of Ill-gotten Properties by Political Parties (政黨及其附隨組織不當取得財產處理條例). Critics criticized the amendments for former as attempt to enable CTi News to retake Channel 52 and the amendments for the latter as part of an attempt to protect Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) assets.
Taiwan Media Watch Foundation researcher Chen Yi-chuan (陳奕銓) castigated the action by opposition parties.
Taipei Times
“We need to have oversight mechanisms on media outlets to safeguard our democracy, and the granting of licenses must not become a tool for political parties to trade for favors and financial benefits. We are opposed to the amendments catering to one
specific outlet,” Chen said.
Democracy activist Lin Po-wei (林泊瑋) pointed to China’s constant military threats toward Taiwan and the example of media oversight elsewhere.
“Even when we set that aside for a moment, all democratic countries, including the US and European nations, have mechanisms for the supervision of the media. It is wrong for legislators to loosen oversight of media groups and pass amendments to favor one outlet, while wrecking the established system of law and order,” Lin said.
Democracy activists and media analysts pointed to CTi TV, owned by Want Want China Times Media Group, whose owner, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), has a major business presence in China and often goes to Beijing.
They warned that the passage of the opposition parties’ amendments on regulating media and party assets would open the door for pro-China “red media” to spread and influence public discourse, as well as the opportunity for the KMT to gain vast wealth from corruption and ill-gotten assets.
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