A proposed amendment to the Nationality Act (國籍法) would make foreign spouses more vulnerable to threats from their Taiwanese spouse, activists said yesterday, calling for the bill to be put on hold until the offending portions are dropped.
“We feel this is an odious way to amend the law, because the new rules will lead to the creation of more stateless persons,” New Immigrants Labor Rights Association director Hsiao Hsiao-tsui (肖小翠) said, citing a provision which drops the time limit for revoking citizenship of foreign spouses whose marriages are found to be fake.
The law already allows citizenship to be revoked within five years for illegal behavior or fraud, but the amendment would drop the five-year time limit for citizenship acquired through a fake marriage.
“The problem is that when marriage conflict erupts some husbands will ‘turn themselves in,’ stating that a real marriage was fake because they want to inflict pain on their wife and drive her out of the country. They can also use this to threaten their wives because all it takes is one sentence for the wife’s citizenship to be revoked,” she said.
“Husbands are liable to be fined depending upon how much money they earned from the fake marriage, but they can always claim that they did not receive any money,” she said.
However, there is a possibility of a prison sentence of up to three months for the husband, subject to a court’s discretion, she added.
“If a husband ‘turns himself in,’ he faces relatively little risk, but the wife faces losing her citizenship, insurance, social benefits and the right to work. Because she has already been forced to renounce her original citizenship, she becomes illegal and stateless at the same time,” Hsiao said.
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
NUMBERS IMBALANCE: More than 4 million Taiwanese have visited China this year, while only about half a million Chinese have visited here Beijing has yet to respond to Taiwan’s requests for negotiation over matters related to the recovery of cross-strait tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. Taiwan’s tourism authority issued the statement after Chinese-language daily the China Times reported yesterday that the government’s policy of banning group tours to China does not stop Taiwanese from visiting the country. As of October, more than 4.2 million had traveled to China this year, exceeding last year. Beijing estimated the number of Taiwanese tourists in China could reach 4.5 million this year. By contrast, only 500,000 Chinese tourists are expected in Taiwan, the report said. The report
Temperatures are forecast to drop steadily as a continental cold air mass moves across Taiwan, with some areas also likely to see heavy rainfall, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. From today through early tomorrow, a cold air mass would keep temperatures low across central and northern Taiwan, and the eastern half of Taiwan proper, with isolated brief showers forecast along Keelung’s north coast, Taipei and New Taipei City’s mountainous areas and eastern Taiwan, it said. Lows of 11°C to 15°C are forecast in central and northern Taiwan, Yilan County, and the outlying Kinmen and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, and 14°C to 17°C
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