About 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners yesterday gathered in front of Taipei City Hall to commemorate the 17th anniversary of a peaceful demonstration by more than 10,000 people in Beijing.
The group called on Taiwanese to give more support to their campaign against human rights abuses in China.
Several Falun Gong practitioners held a banner reading “Commemorating the 17th anniversary of the peaceful petition on April 25 of Chinese Falun Gong practitioners,” while others, in yellow uniforms and yellow caps, sat in meditation postures.
Photo: DAVID CHANG, EPA
“We are commemorating the April 25 peaceful demonstration here today, because though it was a campaign by Falun Gong practitioners in China, it carries very significant meaning for Taiwan as well,” Taiwan Falun Dafa Association president Chang Chin-hwa (張錦華) said.
She said that as the Chinese government has a poor human rights record, Taiwanese might fall victim to such abuses in cross-strait exchanges, especially when many Taiwanese live and work in China or do business with the Chinese.
“Also, when Falun Gong practitioners peacefully demonstrate in front of Taipei 101, there have been people sent by China to yell at them or even beat them,” Chang said. “This shows China’s authoritarian nature is now threatening Taiwanese.”
Chang said the peaceful demonstration by the group in Beijing on April 25, 1999 was a landmark event, because it was the first peaceful mass demonstration in China, adding that then-Chinese premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) also took their petition according to the law.
“This shows the Chinese could freely communicate with the government according to the law,” Chang said. “It could have been an opportunity for the Chinese Communist Party to open up, but unfortunately, then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin [江澤民] insisted on launching a massive persecution against Falun Gong.”
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