The Tourism Bureau yesterday said that an administrative order demanding local governments remove posters and billboards put up by the Falun Gong movement at tourist attractions was a “rookie mistake” made by a new official and the bureau would revise the order within a week.
Blasted by lawmakers and representatives of Falun Gong in a news conference, Tourism Bureau Deputy Director-General Chang Hsi-tsung (張錫聰) said that the document, issued on Sept. 26, which asked all Falun Gong posters to be removed, was a mistake.
Chang promised to issue a new order next week.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
The document, written by a staffer whom Chang said has been with the bureau for less than two months, singled out Falun Gong’s billboards and posters installed at various sightseeing spots and said they “might negatively affect foreign tourists’ perception of the country.”
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Hsu Chung-hsin (許忠信) said that, with the order, the bureau has become Beijing’s “hired thug” in its oppression of religious freedom and freedom of expression.
“It was the most serious humiliation for Falun Gong and its practitioners. If this is not fascism, then what is?” said National Taiwan University professor Flora Chang (張錦華), a representative of Falun Gong.
The professor urged the bureau to immediately repeal the order and apologize to Falun Gong and its practitioners.
She called on Premier Jiang Yi-huah (江宜樺) and the Ministry of Communications and Transportation to reaffirm their determination to safeguard Taiwan’s democratic values.
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:
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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