Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential hopeful Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said yesterday she would not be responding to a media furor over her sexual orientation.
“There is nothing wrong with any gender, sexual orientation or marital status. Nobody has the right to question another [on this],” Tsai said in a short -300-word public statement.
Tsai said she would use the opportunity presented by the furor to promote awareness about discrimination, suggesting that an individual’s right to privacy concerning their sexual orientation was akin to a human rights issue. She said she would work to “eliminate gender discrimination in Taiwan.”
Photo: Chien Jung-fong, Taipei Times
“I will lead Taiwan as a country that respects human rights and is more accepting. I will also work to ensure that minority groups experience the same quality of life, happiness and respect on this piece of land as everyone else,” she added.
Former DPP chairman Shih Ming-teh (施明德) drew criticism on Thursday after he called on Tsai, who is single, to clarify her sexual orientation, saying that voters needed a “clear answer” before voting for her next year.
“She needs to be true to herself, her body, in order to be true to her beliefs and her country,” Shih said.
Lawmakers across party lines, as well as gay rights and feminist groups, have come to Tsai’s defense over the past two days, saying that it is irrelevant for the presidential hopeful to disclose such personal details.
The Taiwan Women’s Link on Friday called on Shih to either explain the relevancy of his remarks or “apologize to all single women, gays and female politicians.”
Tsai’s competitors in the DPP primaries also said they did not believe a candidate should be questioned on their sexual orientation.
“Taiwan cannot be like this and politics should not be like this. I do not think that it’s a good idea,” Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) told reporters yesterday.
Hsu Hsin-liang (許信良) said he was “astonished” by Shih’s questions, which he called a violation of Tsai’s privacy.
In the statement, Tsai said she would “definitely not” respond to a line of questioning she characterized as “surprising” — considering Shih’s past work in Taiwan’s democracy and human rights movement.
“Because if I did, it would amount to recognizing his right to question anybody [on the issue],” Tsai said.
Asked whether she felt angered by the remarks at a later setting, she said she “wasn’t angry, did not care and did not plan to respond on the issue any further.”
Tsai, who has temporairily stepped down as DPP chairperson, has not been linked to anybody romantically in the past decade she has been a public figure.
The questions come at a sensitive time for her, with two weeks left before the telephone polls used to settle the primaries between April 25 and 29.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
BEIJING’S ‘PAWN’: ‘We, as Chinese, should never forget our roots, history, culture,’ Want Want Holdings general manager Tsai Wang-ting said at a summit in China The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday condemned Want Want China Times Media Group (旺旺中時媒體集團) for making comments at the Cross-Strait Chinese Culture Summit that it said have damaged Taiwan’s sovereignty, adding that it would investigate if the group had colluded with China in the matter and contravened cross-strait regulations. The council issued a statement after Want Want Holdings (旺旺集團有限公司) general manager Tsai Wang-ting (蔡旺庭), the third son of the group’s founder, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), said at the summit last week that the group originated in “Chinese Taiwan,” and has developed and prospered in “the motherland.” “We, as Chinese, should never
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS