Several lawmakers yesterday blasted China over a decision by customs officials in Macau to deny entry to a Taiwanese woman because her passport had a sticker on it that read: “Taiwan is my country.”
The Chinese-language Apple Daily reported that the woman, surnamed Su (蘇), is a dancer who arrived in Macau on Thursday last week with the rest of her dance troupe for performances there on Friday and Saturday.
The report said that after seeing the sticker on the back cover of her passport, Macau customs officials took Su into a small room for questioning, during which they allegedly told her: “You are asking for trouble by challenging China’s authority.”
Su was denied entry on the grounds that “the authenticity of [her] travel document is questionable,” causing her to face possible compensation claims from her agency due to her failure to take part in the planned performances, the report said.
In an interview with the Apple Daily, Su said she put the sticker on the back cover of her passport when she was studying abroad in 2012 and that she had no trouble entering Japan, South Korea and European nations in the past four years.
The report quoted Su as saying that in a last-ditch attempt to not let her passport jeopardize her chance of participating in the performances, she had expressed willingness to remove it.
However, the customs officials still asked her to sign an affidavit and arranged for her to be on the next available flight to Taiwan, Su was quoted as saying.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純) on Facebook yesterday said that the incident occurred before the new government was sworn in, on May 20, exposed China’s ugly side of being truculent and unreasonable.
“Because of this sticker, a young dancer was deported by Macau customs officials, which affected her work,” Ho said.
“I demand that the Straits Exchange Foundation lodge a protest and negotiate with China, and that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ personnel stationed in Macau also take their complaints to the Macau government and customs, to safeguard our citizens’ freedom, personal security and right to work,” Ho said.
New Power Party Legislator Freddy Lim (林昶佐) said the incident underscored China’s deliberate attempts to single out Taiwanese and make things difficult for them.
“Unless there is evidence that there have also been cases of US or Japanese citizens being denied entry when seeking to enter Hong Kong or Macau with sticker-adorned passports, it is without doubt that the policy only targets Taiwanese,” Lin said.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Eleanor Wang (王珮玲) said any unauthorized modifications made to a passport could impede its identification purpose and global credibility.
“The ministry has repeatedly cautioned our citizens about the matter. The nation’s passports currently enjoy visa-free or landing visa status in 164 countries... The public should cherish this hard-earned achievement and refrain from making any alterations to passports to safeguard their rights while traveling,” Wang said.
Wang said that as of yesterday, a total of 16 Taiwanese, including Su, had been denied entry by Macau customs officials due to stickers on their passports this year.
The incident came weeks after the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee approved a proposal to eliminate a controversial addendum to the Enforcement Rules of the Passport Act (護照條例施行細則) that bans any modifications to passports.
The ban had been perceived as targeting the pro-independence Taiwanese passport sticker movement, which encourages Taiwanese to cover the “Republic of China” seal on their passport cover with a “Republic of Taiwan” sticker.
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
Taiwan will now have four additional national holidays after the Legislative Yuan passed an amendment today, which also made Labor Day a national holiday for all sectors. The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their majority in the Legislative Yuan to pass the amendment to the Act on Implementing Memorial Days and State Holidays (紀念日及節日實施辦法), which the parties jointly proposed, in its third and final reading today. The legislature passed the bill to amend the act, which is currently enforced administratively, raising it to the legal level. The new legislation recognizes Confucius’ birthday on Sept. 28, the
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS