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TSU legislators fault ministry over WHA

TSU Legislator Ho Min-hao, center, and his colleagues call on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to adopt a tougher stance regarding the WHA's refusal to allow Taiwanese reporters to cover the group's upcoming annual meeting, yesterday. PHOTO: SEAN CHAO, TAIPEI TIMES

The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) legislative caucus yesterday condemned China for suppressing Taiwan and obstructing Taiwanese media coverage of this year's World Health Assembly (WHA), and criticized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for not making a great enough effort to protect Taiwan's rights and dignity.

The WHA is slated to convene on Monday.

This week the WHA said that it had transferred authority for press accreditation to the UN due to security concerns. The UN declared that journalists holding Taiwanese passports would not be permitted to enter the assembly building because Taiwan is not a UN member.

It has been rumored that China engineered this arrangement.

The TSU yesterday invited the ministry and Government Information Office (GIO) to elaborate on the situation.

The TSU legislators demanded that the government stick up for the nation's media -- and criticized China's actions.

"If we look at China's health record, China should be the one isolated from the global health network -- yet due to human rights concerns, China is still included. So China really should not oppress Taiwan," TSU Legislator Chien Lin Whei-jun (錢林慧君) said.

Meanwhile, the ministry and GIO officials said that they had contacted several international press clubs and requested the support of

international reporters.

"We feel angry about this. Press freedom is a universal value and we urge China to respect that freedom," said David Lee (李南陽), the GIO's director of the Department of International Information Services.

"We have also contacted the WHO secretariat in Geneva and we have been negotiating with them on the issue," said Jieh Wen-chieh (介文汲), the ministry's deputy director-general of the Department of International Organizations.
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