Activists and netizens yesterday criticized the government for denying entry to German environmentalist Daniel Helmdach at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport on Friday afternoon, and deporting him later that night.
“[Helmdach] has never done anything illegal in Taiwan. I think he was denied entry because he took part in an anti-nuclear demonstration two years ago, and it so happens that the nationwide anti-nuclear demonstrations are taking place the day after his arrival,” said Green Formosa Front member Lin Chang-mau (林長茂), who was to pick up Helmdach from the airport on Friday.
“This is the only reason I can think of behind the National Immigration Agency’s (NIA) decision to deny his entry and deport him,” Lin added. “This is a joke.”
Helmdach arrived in Taiwan at about 4pm on Friday, but was denied entry and deported at 11pm that night.
Chao Jui-kuang (晁瑞光), a teacher at Tainan Community College and a personal friend of Helmdach, said he could not understand why the environmentalist was deported.
“Helmdach was here to visit friends in Taiwan. He didn’t come here to join the anti-nuclear demonstration. The government should apologize to him,” Chao said on his Facebook page.
“This is such a shame for Taiwan,” Chao added.
Chao said that when Helmdach was in Taiwan two years ago, he volunteered at Tainan Community College and helped translate information related to environmental protection into German and English.
As an anti-nuclear demonstration took place on April 30 that year, Helmdach went along to observe the event, “that’s probably why he was blacklisted,” Chao said.
Commenting on the case, immigration agency spokesman Hsu Chien-lin (徐健麟) told the Taipei Times via telephone that Helmdach was prohibited from entering the country for three years according to the conclusion of an immigration review meeting on Dec. 27, 2011.
“Helmdach left the country on July 25, 2011, and is prohibited from re-entry until Sept. 15, 2014,” Hsu said.
Asked if Helmdach was placed on the border control list for his participation in the anti-nuclear demonstration, Hsu said there is no problem with foreigners taking part in legally approved demonstrations.
“The problem is that he took part in two demonstrations, one was legal, one was illegal, thus he was in violation of the Assembly and Parade Act (集會遊行法),” Hsu said.
FLU SEASON: Twenty-six severe cases were reported from Tuesday last week to Monday, including a seven-year-old girl diagnosed with influenza-associated encephalopathy Nearly 140,000 people sought medical assistance for diarrhea last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said on Tuesday. From April 7 to Saturday last week, 139,848 people sought medical help for diarrhea-related illness, a 15.7 percent increase from last week’s 120,868 reports, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The number of people who reported diarrhea-related illness last week was the fourth highest in the same time period over the past decade, Lee said. Over the past four weeks, 203 mass illness cases had been reported, nearly four times higher than the 54 cases documented in the same period
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not