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Protest to France, MOFA urged

A legislator yesterday called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to lodge a protest with France over an incident in which two Taiwanese were stripped, searched and detained for two days simply because they were holding two different kinds of Taiwanese passports.

KMT Legislator Kuo Su-chun (郭素春) slammed the ministry for its failure to provide immediate assistance to the two men and said the ministry should protest the humiliating treatment they endured and demand an open apology from the French government over the incident in the French capital.

Kuo was referring to a report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday which said that two staff members of a Taipei County technology company were traveling from Paris to London two weeks ago on a business trip when they were detained by authorities at Charles de Gaulle International Airport on suspicion of being terrorists because they were holding two different Taiwan passports -- one with the name "Taiwan" on the cover, the other without.

The two men were handed over to French police by British Airways workers at the airport, after which they were stripped to their underpants, searched and transported to a detention room where they sat for two days and two nights before being released, the report said.

The report said after the two men had informed their company head office of the incident, company authorities called the MOFA for assistance, only to be asked by officials why the two men had not requested assistance at the time.

Ministry officials said no Taiwanese passport holder had been detained overseas before for holding a new or old copy of a Taiwanese passport.

To date neither British Airways nor the French authorities had given any reason why the two men were detained and questioned, the officials said. They only informed the nation's representative office in France of the procedures whereby the victims could file a complaint, the officials said, adding that outbound travelers should always contact the ministry for emergency relief or assistance.

KMT Legislator Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) yesterday blamed the government's "name change" campaign for the incident, saying the campaign had made it difficult for people traveling overseas.

"The incident would not have happened if the government had made sure the change, adding the word `Taiwan' to the cover of passports, was made known to other countries before the policy was implemented," Lin said.

New passports with the word "Taiwan" in Roman script on the cover were formally issued in September 2003 as part of the government's effort to stop Taiwanese traveling abroad being confused with citizens of China.

Taiwan Solidarity Union Legislator Kuo Lin-yung (郭林勇) yesterday urged KMT lawmakers not to use the incident as a way to attack the government's "name change" campaign.

Adding the word "Taiwan" to the cover of passports prevents people overseas from confusing Taiwanese citizens with those from the People's Republic of China, he said.

Additional reporting by Shih Hsiu-chuan
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