Dozens of protesters mobilized by Amnesty International (AI) Taiwan and several other civic groups in the country staged a demonstration near the Israeli representative office in Taipei yesterday, demanding that Israel stop its military actions in the Gaza Strip.
“We cannot but feel the horror of the effects of so much bombardment and ground fire on the Gaza civilians, who have already suffered gravely from your government's blockade of even humanitarian aid and supplies,” said AI Taiwan chairman Peter Huang (黃文雄), reading an open letter to Israeli President Shimon Peres in English, before handing the letter to a staffer at the Israeli office.
“This does not mean, of course, that our feelings of moral horror does not extend to the lost lives of Israeli civilians,” Huang said. “On the contrary, it is for the sake of preventing more lives from being lost and for the possible beginning of a more durable peace that we're writing to you.”
PHOTO: CNA
Israel launched its latest offensive on Dec. 27 in an attempt to halt rocket fire from the Hamas-controlled territory.
According to wire reports, 22 Israelis have been killed in Hamas rocket attacks, while more than 760 Palestinians — mostly civilians — have lost their lives since Israel began the mass offensive.
Hung Hung (鴻鴻), a poet, read three poems during the protest — one by Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai that tells how Israeli civilians suffer from Hamas attacks, another by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish that recounts how a Palestinian mother mourns the death of her son after the Israeli offensive, and a third one that he wrote himself, describing his joy upon learning of the withdrawal of Israeli troops in 2002.
The reading was followed by a minute of silence for those who have lost their lives in the conflict.
A staffer from the Israeli representative office came out of the building to accept the protest letter from the demonstrators.
Meanwhile, Israeli Representative Raphael Gamzou criticized AI for not fully disclosing its intention when it asked for a meeting, but added that his invitation for an open dialogue remained.
Gamzou said the group failed to conduct itself with “integrity” and that the Israeli office only found out about the demonstration from local law enforcement authorities.
He said that by lodging a protest in front of the Israeli office, AI had already shown its bias.
The office had expected the group to present an anti-violence petition.
Gamzou said although he respects the group, he declined to meet with AI officers because he refused to be an “actor in their sitcom” as he was never informed by the group it was planning to stage a demonstration.
During the eight-year-long Hamas-initiated attacks against Israeli civilians, he said he never saw “any expressions of anger and sadness from Amnesty International Taiwan or any local NGOs.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods