A legal mechanism would have to be put in place to grant political asylum to Hong Kong bookseller Lam Wing-kei (林榮基) if he applies for it, Minister of the Interior Yeh Jiunn-rong (葉俊榮) said on Wednesday.
Yeh made the remarks during a legislative session in response to a question by Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chuang Jui-hsiung (莊瑞雄) on what the ministry would do if Lam applied for political asylum in Taiwan, which does not have a law on asylum seekers.
Yeh said that if Lam wanted to enter the nation for purposes other than tourism, a mechanism would have be established so that the government could handle the matter in accordance with the law.
The National Immigration Agency said that Article 18 of the Act Governing Relations with Hong Kong and Macau (香港澳門關係條例), stating “necessary assistance shall be provided to Hong Kong or Macau residents whose safety and liberty are immediately threatened for political reasons,” can be invoked when Hong Kongers seek political asylum, adding that regulations for their application for residence are also available.
In a telephone interview on the Public Television Service on Tuesday night, Lam said that if he were to seek political asylum, he would choose Taiwan, because he trusts a popularly elected government.
Lam had been detained in China for about eight months, in what he said was an abduction by Chinese agents in October last year.
He was allowed to return to Hong Kong last week on the condition he bring back a hard drive containing a list of the shop’s clients, including many mail-order customers in China.
However, he changed his mind at the last minute and instead spoke publicly about his ordeal.
On Saturday, Lam said he was detained after crossing Hong Kong’s border with China, blindfolded for a 13-hour train ride to a city near Shanghai and confined in a small room, where he was kept under surveillance and interrogated.
“Hong Kongers will not bow down to brute force,” he said.
He is one of five Hong Kong booksellers who mysteriously disappeared last year, prompting concerns that they had been abducted by Chinese authorities.
The five men worked at Causeway Bay Books publishing house that published books critical of the Chinese Communist Party elite.
The Mainland Affairs Council, when asked about Lam’s case, said that Beijing should abide by what it has promised to Hong Kong within the “one country, two systems” framework and maintain the rule of law in the territory while protecting Hong Kongers’ freedom and human rights.
It also called on Chinese authorities to make public the facts about the publishers’ disappearance.
Additional Reporting by Hsiao Ting-fang and Lin Liang-sheng
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the