Two Japanese citizens could be deported for attending an anti-nuclear power rally in Taipei on Saturday, because officials said their participation in the protest was contrary to the stated purpose of their visit to the country.
The National Immigration Agency yesterday said it would assess police video footage of the protest and will decide whether to deport Ayako Oga and Saeko Uno.
Thousands of people took to the streets on Saturday to urge the government to stop construction of the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant in Gongliao District (貢寮), New Taipei City (新北市), and pursue a more sustainable energy policy.
Among them were Oga and Uno, who are both from Fukushima Prefecture where the March 11 earthquake and tsunami caused severe damage to a nuclear power plant and led to the worst nuclear power crisis in Japan’s history.
The two Japanese made comments and sang at the rally, but police said this was against regulations since the two women were in the country on tourist visas.
City police warned the pair that they risked breaking the law, but Oga and Uno, in their late 30s, remained at the rally.
The agency said their actions were in violation of Article 29 of the enforcement rules of the Immigration Act (入出國及移民法), which bars foreign nationals from taking part in activities or work that does not match the stated purpose of their visit.
However, an agency official said the pair’s anti-nuclear stance was understandable in light of the disaster that had occurred in their hometown.
Based on human rights considerations and video evidence produced by the city police, the agency would decide whether to deport the pair, the official said.
“We will not force them to leave the country simply because they said a few words on stage [at the rally],” the official said.
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.
RSS