For the second time in two weeks, a Spanish court yesterday granted China’s request to extradite 93 Chinese and Taiwanese fraud suspects to China based on Beijing’s so-called “one China” principle, again raising the ire of Taiwanese officials.
The government expressed its regret and discontent over the Spanish National Court’s decision to send the suspects to China, only days after making a similar decision on Dec. 15 to deport 121 fraud suspects — including some Taiwanese — to Beijing, the Mainland Affairs Council said in a news release yesterday.
A total of 269 suspects were reportedly arrested in connection with the case in December last year.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is still trying to determine how many of the 214 suspects pending deportation are Taiwanese, the ministry said.
The deportation orders were made in accordance with an extradition treaty signed between Beijing and Madrid in 2005 and ratified in 2006.
The council yesterday again urged China to honor the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議), which was signed in 2009 to promote bilateral cooperation with Taiwan.
“Only cooperation truly assists our fight against telecom fraud crimes and our efforts to punish transgressors and safeguard the rights of people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait,” the council said.
The agreement was shelved even before President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 20 last year.
Since April last year, a total of 288 Taiwanese have been deported to China from various nations — including Kenya, Malaysia, Cambodia, Armenia, Vietnam and Indonesia — for alleged telecom fraud targeting people in China, council data showed.
On Thursday, 44 Taiwanese fraud suspects deported from Kenya were given prison terms by a Chinese court, with two receiving the heaviest sentence of 15 years.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by