Members of the pro-independence Taiwan Radical Wings party were evicted from a New Year’s Day ceremony in front of the Presidential Office Building for waving flags promoting Taiwanese independence yesterday, while the party accused the authorities of failing to protect free speech.
Party members participating in the ceremony displayed a “flag of Taiwan” and an “independence flag,” causing a confrontation with police.
Police officers said that only the national flag was allowed at the ceremony, and evicted several party members and volunteers, while some attendees displaying flags advocating marriage equality were allowed to stay.
Photo: CNA
“Is it not the most typical form of infringement on the freedom of speech that the state treats different opinions differently?” the party said in a statement.
No party members were injured, although a telephone was broken during the eviction, party deputy publicity director Lin Chun-miao (林春妙) said.
The police did not respond to party members’ accusations that they were treated unfairly compared with equal marriage rights advocates who waved rainbow flags, Lin said.
Citing President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) address after winning the presidential election that promised “no citizens have to apologize for their identification,” the party said the eviction of people publicly professing their political stance was counter to the president’s pledge.
The Executive Yuan last month announced Freedom of Expression Day to mark the death of democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕), but yesterday’s eviction was a bitter irony considering the government’s pledge to ensure the freedom of speech, the party said.
The government has tried to silence the independence movement by identifying the Republic of China (ROC) with Taiwan and vice versa, while the commemoration of Deng’s death with Freedom of Expression Day might do away with Deng’s legacy as a pro-Taiwanese-independence activist, it said.
“As long as Taiwanese independence narratives remain a taboo for the government, there is no true freedom of speech in Taiwan. As along as the Democratic Progressive Party [DPP] administration does not face the alien characters of the ROC system, it remains an accomplice of the Chinese settler regime,” the party said.
Meanwhile, a Changhua County man held a flag-raising ceremony using China’s national flag during which which China’s national anthem was played.
Wei Ming-jen (魏明仁), a former military officer who is now in the construction business, acquired a Buddhist temple in the county’s Ershuei Township (二水) six years ago and converted it into a “socialism and nationalism outpost of the People’s Republic of China.”
Wei invited “comrades and unificationists” to join yesterday’s ceremony, with about 200 people in attendance, including reporters from China.
Wei said he is a Chinese citizen and is working toward Taiwan’s unification with China, adding that he burned his Taiwanese identification and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) membership cards.
Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku (魏明谷) of the DPP said he has asked police to monitor Wei Ming-jen’s networking activities, although it was not worthwhile to trouble himself with a person who betrays his nation and repurposes a temple for political aims.
“If he has the courage, he should go and raise the ROC national flag in China,” the commissioner said.
The Mainland Affairs Council said it does not comment on the political views of individuals, adding that identification with the ROC is the most widely accepted political view among Taiwanese.
Additional reporting by Yen Hung-chun and CNA
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
THE GOOD WORD: More than 100 colleges on both sides of the Pacific will work together to bring students to Taiwan so they can learn Mandarin where it is spoken A total of 102 universities from Taiwan and the US are collaborating in a push to promote Taiwan as the first-choice place to learn Mandarin, with seven Mandarin learning centers stood up in the US to train and support teachers, the Foundation for International Cooperation in Higher Education of Taiwan (FICHET) said. At the annual convention of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages held over the weekend in New Orleans, Louisiana, a Taiwan Pavilion was jointly run by 17 representative teams from the FICHET, the Overseas Community Affairs Council, the Steering Committee for the Test of Proficiency-Huayu, the
A home-style restaurant opened by a Taiwanese woman in Quezon City in Metro Manila has been featured in the first-ever Michelin Guide honoring exceptional restaurants in the Philippines. The restaurant, Fong Wei Wu (豐味屋), was one of 74 eateries to receive a “Michelin Selected” honor in the guide, while one restaurant received two Michelin stars, eight received one star and 25 were awarded a “Bib Gourmand.” The guide, which was limited to restaurants in Metro Manila and Cebu, was published on Oct. 30. In an interview, Feng Wei Wu’s owner and chef, Linda, said that as a restaurateur in her 60s, receiving an
RSS