Tibetans living in exile in Taiwan and officials from several government institutions failed to reach a conclusion yesterday during their first meeting on the group’s status in the country.
Taiwan Tibetan Welfare Association chairman Jamga, secretary-general Lobsang Tenpa — both of whom have obtained Taiwanese citizenship — and a Tibetan introduced as “Abu” who entered the country on a forged Indian passport six years ago, met with officials from the National Immigration Agency (NIA), the Bureau of Consular Affairs and the Mainland Affairs Council at NIA headquarters in Taipei yesterday.
Since last week, more than 100 Tibetans living in Taiwan who entered the country on forged passports have staged a sit-in demonstration at Liberty Square, asking the government for asylum.
Lobsang said he had told the meeting that the demonstrators “have nowhere to go; they don’t have legal residency in Taiwan, they can’t get jobs because of that, but they cannot be sent back to India [or Nepal] since they held forged passports.”
“Something has to be done,” he said.
Lobsang recounted the story of a Tibetan named Shirap who used to live in Taiwan and was only allowed to return to India last year with some difficulty because of his forged travel documents.
“He wanted to see his family in India because he was discovered to have serious cancer, and only had about six months left,” he said. “But as soon as he set foot on Indian soil, he was locked up for using a forged passport and died in prison.”
The Tibetans were invited to present their demands during the first part of the meeting, while the second part was reserved for government officials.
Lobsang said that many Tibetans had come to Taiwan because the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission [MTAC] used to recruit Tibetan refugees in India to come to Taiwan.
“The policy discontinued sometime after 2000, but the word was already out and a lot of us had the misconception that since there’s an MTAC, the government of Taiwan would take good care of us,” he said.
“If we had known this [had changed], we would’ve gone to the US, Canada or some countries in Europe where we could get legal residency as refugees,” he said.
Lobsang said that in some Western countries, Tibetans could be granted asylum as long as they had a document proving their identity issued by the Tibetan government in exile, “even if they had forged passports.”
No conclusion as to the Tibetan’s demands was reached at yesterday’s meeting.
“The main purpose of today’s meeting was only to hear what [the Tibetans] had to say. We couldn’t have made any decision, since none of the officials with the power to make decisions took part in the meeting,” an NIA official said on condition of anonymity.
Taiwan would benefit from more integrated military strategies and deployments if the US and its allies treat the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea as a “single theater of operations,” a Taiwanese military expert said yesterday. Shen Ming-shih (沈明室), a researcher at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said he made the assessment after two Japanese military experts warned of emerging threats from China based on a drill conducted this month by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Eastern Theater Command. Japan Institute for National Fundamentals researcher Maki Nakagawa said the drill differed from the
‘WORSE THAN COMMUNISTS’: President William Lai has cracked down on his political enemies and has attempted to exterminate all opposition forces, the chairman said The legislature would motion for a presidential recall after May 20, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) said yesterday at a protest themed “against green communists and dictatorship” in Taipei. Taiwan is supposed to be a peaceful homeland where people are united, but President William Lai (賴清德) has been polarizing and tearing apart society since his inauguration, Chu said. Lai must show his commitment to his job, otherwise a referendum could be initiated to recall him, he said. Democracy means the rule of the people, not the rule of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), but Lai has failed to fulfill his
A rally held by opposition parties yesterday demonstrates that Taiwan is a democratic country, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that if opposition parties really want to fight dictatorship, they should fight it on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) held a protest with the theme “against green communists and dictatorship,” and was joined by the Taiwan People’s Party. Lai said the opposition parties are against what they called the “green communists,” but do not fight against the “Chinese communists,” adding that if they really want to fight dictatorship, they should go to the right place and face
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
RSS