The European Parliament on Thursday passed a resolution calling for the Chinese government to drop the charges against several human rights activists, including Taiwanese Lee Ming-che (李明哲), and for them to be released.
It was the second time that it has called for Lee’s release. The first was in July last year after he had been detained in China for more than three months for alleged “subversion of state power.”
Since then, Lee has been convicted and sentenced to five years in prison and the deprivation of his political rights for two years.
Screengrab from the Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court’s microblog
In Thursday’s resolution, the European Parliament also addressed the cases of Chinese activists Wu Gan (吳淦) and Xie Yang (謝陽), as well as Tibetan activist Tashi Wangchuk and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, who the Dalai Lama has named as the 11th Panchen Lama.
The resolution stated the parliament’s concern over the Chinese government’s approach to human rights activists and lawyers, and called for the release of Wu, Lee and Wangchuk.
Pending the release of the detainees, the Chinese government should give them access to adequate medical care and allow regular, unrestricted visits by their relatives and lawyers, the resolution said.
Furthermore, the detainees should not be subjected to torture or any other form of ill-treatment, the European Parliament said, calling on China to guarantee that defenders of human rights could carry out their work in the country without fear of reprisals.
It also urged China to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and to sign and ratify the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.
In Taipei yesterday, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs thanked the European Parliament on behalf of the Taiwanese government for passing the resolution.
Ministry spokesman Andrew Lee (李憲章) said that it would continue to cooperate with relevant government agencies to support Lee’s family and the “Lee Ming-che rescue team,” an alliance formed by non-governmental organizations in Taiwan.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
Conflict with Taiwan could leave China with “massive economic disruption, catastrophic military losses, significant social unrest, and devastating sanctions,” a US think tank said in a report released on Monday. The German Marshall Fund released a report titled If China Attacks Taiwan: The Consequences for China of “Minor Conflict” and “Major War” Scenarios. The report details the “massive” economic, military, social and international costs to China in the event of a minor conflict or major war with Taiwan, estimating that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) could sustain losses of more than half of its active-duty ground forces, including 100,000 troops. Understanding Chinese
US President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Times published on Thursday said that “it’s up to” Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be “very unhappy” with a change in the “status quo.” “He [Xi] considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing, but I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that. I hope he doesn’t do that,” Trump said. Trump made the comments in the context
SELF-DEFENSE: Tokyo has accelerated its spending goal and its defense minister said the nation needs to discuss whether it should develop nuclear-powered submarines China is ramping up objections to what it sees as Japan’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, despite Tokyo’s longstanding renunciation of such arms, deepening another fissure in the two neighbors’ increasingly tense ties. In what appears to be a concerted effort, China’s foreign and defense ministries issued statements on Thursday condemning alleged remilitarism efforts by Tokyo. The remarks came as two of the country’s top think tanks jointly issued a 29-page report framing actions by “right-wing forces” in Japan as posing a “serious threat” to world peace. While that report did not define “right-wing forces,” the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs was
RSS