Chinese pressure forced Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Yang Shu-chun (楊淑君) to withdraw an appeal against her disqualification at the Asian Games last year from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), a Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator said yesterday.
With the Chinese Taipei Taekwondo Association (CTTA) and the Sports Affairs Council (SAC) embroiled in allegations that they threatened Yang to get her to withdraw the appeal, DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) yesterday added that he suspected they were under the influence of strong Chinese pressure.
Citing a letter to former Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee chairman Chang Feng-shu (張豐緒) obtained by the DPP, Gao said senior Chinese sports official Wei Jizhong (魏紀中), president of the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB), advised Taiwan to “weigh its options” in the appeal because he has many experienced “lawyer friends” in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Photo: Lo Pei-der, Taipei Times
“What are your chances of winning the case against us?” Wei asked in the letter.
Gao’s allegations came after former CTTA chairman Chen Chien-ping (陳建平) was quoted as saying in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Monday that Yang was forced to drop the appeal and sign a letter of proxy enabling the CTTA to handle the lawsuit on her behalf under threat from current CTTA chairman Angus Hsu (許安進).
DPP spokesman Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) said on that same day that Hsu threatened Yang by saying that her place on the Olympic taekwondo team, the position of her boyfriend and coach Liu Tsung-ta (劉聰達), as well as her training expenses, would all be at stake.
Hsu has denied the accusations, while SAC deputy chairman Steven Chen (陳士魁) said on Monday that the council neither recognized the letter of proxy nor held the view that Yang has been threatened by Hsu.
Gao yesterday said the SAC was aware of the letter from Wei, but had done nothing to help Yang.
DPP Legislator Tsai Huang-liang (蔡煌瑯) said President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had promised to offer Yang full support in her effort to “clear her name” after being disqualified.
“It is time for them to speak out,” Tsai said. “And if Yang was threatened, the judiciary should launch an investigation into the matter.”
In response, Steven Chen said the latest accusations were a “ridiculous association” between two separate events.
Steven Chen said he knew Chang and Wei had exchanged opinions over Yang’s case in December last year, when the SAC was in the process of helping Yang file lawsuits against the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), the Guangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee and the Asian Taekwondo Union.
“Chang relayed to us what Wei thought about the case, including [his advice to] not sue the OCA,” Chen said. “However, that was Wei’s opinion. We filed the lawsuits anyway.”
Chang said he had never seen the letter that Gao mentioned in the press conference.
Steven Chen said the council would have dropped the lawsuits in January or February if it really had no intention of continuing the legal process, adding that it did not have to wait until last month to make that announcement.
At a separate setting yesterday, Wu denied that Yang had been forced to withdraw the lawsuit.
Wu said he had asked Sports Affairs Council Minister Tai Hsia-ling (戴遐齡) to relay his opinions on this case to Yang upon learning from the media that Yang intended to withdraw the lawsuit.
“I wanted Tai to tell Yang that she can’t just hastily decide to swallow [the ruling]. [The ruling] was something that can’t be swallowed at will. The government and the public will never swallow that. As long as you [Yang’s] defense is defensible, the government will back her up till the end,” Wu said.
NO CHANGE
The government has not changed its position in supporting Yang in appealing the case, Wu added.
Meanwhile, Hsu yesterday filed a slander lawsuit with the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office against Chen Chien-ping over the latter’s remarks that he pressured Yang to withdraw her appeal.
Hsu also rebutted Chen Chi-mai’s remarks. However, he said he would not file a lawsuit against Chen Chi-mai now because it was election season, but he would consider filing a lawsuit against him after January’s elections.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan,Shih Hsiu-chuan and Rich Chang
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique