A list of Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners compiled by China's intelligence led to these practitioners' detention and deportation at Hong Kong International Airport in the days leading up to the territory's handover anniversary, Taiwanese national security officials said.
Hundreds of Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioners planned to go to Hong Kong to take part in a demonstration held by the territory's democracy activists on July 1 -- the 10th year anniversary of the former British colony's return to China.
Despite their legal travel documents, Taiwanese Falun Gong followers and supporters were expelled by Hong Kong airport police after their arrival.
Taiwanese national security officials said that specific groups or individuals such as the Falun Gong in Taiwan have become targets of Chinese intelligence gathering.
A female Falun Gong practitioner told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) that Cathay Pacific Airlines employees told her "you may have a problem entering [Hong Kong]" as she was checking in at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
Despite the warning, she insisted on boarding the flight to Hong Kong as she had a valid Hong Kong visa. She had applied for the visa and bought the airline ticket alone -- not with other Falun Gong practitioners. However, upon her arrival in Hong Kong, the immigration officer told her to go to another room when she presented her passport and visa.
The immigration officer did not explain the reason when she asked, she said.
She was refused entry, with no reason cited, wrapped up in a bomb blanket and sent on a flight back to Taiwan, she told the Liberty Times.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese Cabinet spokesman Shieh Jhy-wey (
Although the national security officials believed that Hong Kong's Falun Gong list had to do with leaks within Falun Gong groups, they warned that China's intelligence gathering was not limited to Falun Gong practitioners.
All key figures and facilities of Taiwan could be targets of China's intelligence gathering, they said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,