More than 60 academics and members of civic groups launched a petition yesterday to boycott the Chinese-language China Times newspaper over recent controversial remarks by its owner, Tsai Eng-meng (蔡衍明), concerning the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Tsai, chairman and chief executive of the Want Want Group (旺旺集團) and owner of multiple media outlets including the China Times, said in an interview last month with the Washington Post that the 1989 crackdown on June 4 in Beijing did not constitute a massacre.
A joint petition drafted by academics and civic groups, including the Taipei Society and pro-democracy advocates, yesterday called for a “boycott of the crooked China Times.”
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
Petitioners called on the public to reject such an “unfaithful medium,” accusing the China Times of abandoning its responsibilities as a media outlet and allowing itself to become a tool for Tsai to ingratiate himself with a totalitarian regime.
Taipei Society director Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appealed for more academics to join their efforts to blacklist the China Times, adding that they might petition government agencies in the near future.
National Chengchi University’s Department of Radio and Television associate professor Kuo Li-shin (郭力昕) said Tsai’s remarks had damaged the professionalism, autonomy and freedom of journalism.
Kuo also called on columnists perceived as pan-blue to back the boycott by “not writing or publishing” in the China Times in a bid to heal a split within society that divides people into either pan-blue or pan-green camps.
“This is just the first step,” Kuo said, adding that Tsai’s constant attempts to acquire and merge different media outlets have monopolized the supposedly diversified public voices of Taiwanese society.
Chiou Wen-tsong (邱文聰), an assistant researcher at Academia Sinica, expressed concern over how little attention the media have paid to Tsai’s remarks, describing the phenomenon as “the gradual collapse of Taiwan’s defense mechanism for its democracy.”
With the owner of a media outlet being in total control of its editorial line and monitoring what its reporters can put in their -articles, it appears as if Taiwanese are under the control of a totalitarian regime again, National Chengchi University professor Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said.
Wang Dan (王丹), a student leader in Tiananmen Square in 1989 who initiated the boycott against the China Times last month via a post on his Facebook page, yesterday wrote on his Facebook page: “In my opinion, people are entitled to express their stance on historic incidents and to defend their freedom of speech in their own manner. It’s not necessary to force columnists currently working at the China Times to quit writing because of public pressure. So long as they can ensure that their articles are not altered or removed, we should respect their choices.”
Meanwhile, according to a reporter working at the China Times, employees scarcely talked about the controversy triggered by Tsai, adding that Tsai’s remarks and the China Times’ pro-China stance had caused jeering among his co-workers.
“We are only trying to make a living,” the anonymous reporter said, adding that Tsai, who last week said his remarks had been distorted and taken out of -context by the Washington Post and that he would communicate with people who misunderstood him, should keep his word and clearly explain his remarks.
Translated by Stacy Hsu, Staff Writer
‘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
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
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