Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday lambasted President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) government for denying a visa to the Dalai Lama, saying this was another “proof” of Ma’s pro-China position.
“President Ma, what are you afraid of? What do you want to do? Your denial of the Dalai Lama’s visit has hurt Taiwanese and Taiwan’s international image,” Lu told a joint press conference with the DPP caucus in the legislature.
Lu, head of the Asia-Pacific regional conference of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW International), which will be held in Taipei from Dec. 1 to 3, invited the Tibetan spiritual leader to attend the conference in February.
Photo: George Tsorng, Taipei Times
The former vice president said she personally asked Ma for help with the Dalai Lama’s visa on Sept. 1, and Ma told her the visit would be “a complex issue.”
BPW International president Freda Miriklis wrote Ma on Aug. 28 and Sept. 10 to inquire about the visit, according to Lu, but did not receive a response until Nov. 16, when Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) turned down the visa request in a letter to Miriklis.
“As for His Holiness the Dalai Lama attending the Conference, he is welcome to travel to Taiwan in due course; however, we need to arrange a more opportune time for his visit,” Lin wrote in his reply.
Lu said the reply was “ridiculous” and that Ma had been evading the issue for four months since her first inquiry.
“People said Ma has been trying to remove all the roadblocks for Beijing so China would easily unify Taiwan in the future. Judging from what Ma has been doing, it would be difficult not to agree with the observation,” Lu said.
Human rights know no border or time, and every country that values democracy and freedom welcomes the Dalai Lama’s visit, DPP Chairman Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said in Hualien.
Using “inappropriate timing” as an excuse to deny the visit “does not make sense,” Su said.
“The denial “was a violation of the mainstream value of an international democratic society and has jeopardized Taiwan’s international image,” Liu Shih-chung (劉世忠), director of the DPP’s Department of International Affairs, said in a press release.
The Dalai Lama visited Taiwan three times in 1997, 2001 and 2009.
In 2001, then-Taipei mayor Ma said the city “always welcomes the Dalai Lama’s visit.”
However, Ma’s attitude toward the Tibetan leader’s visit came into question after he became president in 2008, as his administration had barred the Dalai Lama from visiting Taiwan several times.
Ma told the Taiwan Foreign Correspondents’ Club in December 2008 that while Taiwan generally welcomes religious leaders from all over the world, “I think at the current moment, the timing isn’t appropriate.”
The Dalai Lama was able to visit southern Taiwan at the invitation of seven DPP mayors and commissioners one month after Typhoon Morakot devastated parts of the south in August 2009, killing about 700 people and causing widespread damage.
A Presidential Office official said that the government’s decision to turn down the proposed visit was based on a “professional assessment” by relevant authorities.
The official, who declined to be named, did not elaborate on the government’s assessment, but said that Taiwan supports religious freedom and welcomes religious leaders from around the world to visit Taiwan for faith-related activities.
Additional reporting by CNA
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
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
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
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