Taipei City councilors yesterday urged the government to ban all commercial and promotional activities in Taiwan by Malaysian-owned Star Cruises, following another case of a Taiwanese passenger going missing -- presumably falling overboard and drowning -- two days ago. The incident was the second involving the cruise company, and the third involving personal safety disputes within the last three months.
Cho Tzi-ming (
DPP Taipei City councilor Lo Tsong-sheng (
Keelung police looked through the ship the next day, but found no one. Cho might have accidentally fallen into the sea, a police officer at Keelung harbor was quoted in press reports as saying.
But Cho's family said they doubted this was possible. Lo said this was the second case of a Taiwanese passenger going missing on a Star Cruise ship. Lo said that the circumstances were suspicious and wondered if the disappearances were entirely accidental.
Three months ago, a Taiwanese man, Lin Tze-huang (
As all the company's cruise ships are registered as Panamanian, and the area where he went missing was on the high seas near Singapore, the case involved the jurisdiction of both the Singapore and Panamanian police. But still, no one knows how the man disappeared.
At the beginning of this month, a woman surnamed Ko also reported to the Keelung police station that she had been robbed during her cruise voyage.
Ko claimed she had lost NT$3 million.
Lo and other family members of those dissatisfied with the cruise line also criticized the safety measures aboard the ship.
"Although the ship is quite large, there are only four security personnel on board," Lo said.
He urged Star Cruises to apologize publicly for the incidents, and urged the government to ban the company's promotion activities ahead of the results of investigations. He also called for Taiwanese passengers to boycott Star Cruises.
Star Cruises is the first cruise service available in Taiwan. It opened for business last November. The company, begun in 1993, is the third-biggest cruise line worldwide, according to Peggy Lee (
Lee said all the cruise ships of the company conform to international safety standards. She said the two incidents of missing people were still under investigation, and it was unfair to punish the cruise company before the results were made public.
"We have sent the surveillance video tapes on the ship to the Keelung police and we have been cooperating," she said.
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