Tearful Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators and Falun Gong practitioners yesterday called on the government to lend a helping hand to Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner Chung Ting-pang (鍾鼎邦), who was taken away by law enforcement agents in China on Monday to “assist in an investigation of Falun Gong activities” and has not been heard from since.
A Mainlander, Chung frequently travels to his father’s hometown in Yongkang City, Jiangxi Province, to visit his father’s relatives, even after his father passed away 15 years ago.
However, when he was about to leave the country after his most recent visit, he was taken away by Chinese authorities at the airport in Ganzhou, Jiangxi Province, his wife said.
“His relatives drove him to the airport and watched as he walked into the restricted area, but he didn’t arrive at the airport in Taiwan,” Chung’s wife, surnamed Lee (李), told a press conference at the legislature. “We contacted his relatives in China immediately; they went to check and told us that he was taken away from the airport to ‘assist in an investigation of Falun Gong activities.’”
“It’s the Dragon Boat Festival tomorrow [Saturday], a day for family reunions, but I will have to ‘celebrate’ it without my husband, my daughter without her father, and my mother-in-law without her son,” a tearful Lee said.
Chung’s mother, surnamed Lai (賴), called on the government to help her son, especially since it says that cross-strait relations are the best they have been in decades.
“My son is a good man, he treats me well and looks after his father’s relatives in China, even 15 years after my husband’s death,” Lai said. “Falun Gong is his religious belief. It’s a religion that teaches truth, compassion and tolerance — my son’s personal religious beliefs should not be the reason for his arrest.”
Lee said the family has sought help from the Straits Exchange Foundation, but the only reply they have received is that the foundation would notify its counterpart in China, the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, and then wait for its reply before taking any action.
“I want the government to be more proactive,” she added.
DPP Legislator Cheng Li-chun (鄭麗君) urged the Chinese government to respect everyone’s right to freedom of religion and unconditionally release Chung. Cheng also called on the Taiwanese government to insist on clauses to protect the rights of Taiwanese in China in any future agreements that Taipei signs with Beijing.
“Everyone in Taiwan is now waiting to see if President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) — who vowed to make Taiwan a human rights-based country — can help a fellow countryman come home for the Dragon Boat Festival through all means and all channels necessary,” said attorney Teresa Chu (朱婉琪), spokesperson for the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
RSS