A coalition of pro-unification groups yesterday criticized the Japanese government for encroaching on Taiwanese fishing rights during a protest outside the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association’s Taipei office.
At 11am yesterday, about 30 protesters from the Concentric Patriotism Association (CPA), the Chung Hwa Baodiao Alliance, the Chinese Association of Friends of Okinawa (CAFO) and other groups gathered in front of the office on Qingcheng Street in the city’s Songshan District (松山), shouting “We want our fishing rights” and “Say no to Japanese invasion.”
Protesters attempted to throw eggs at the office, but were unable to approach, as it was surrounded by more than 100 police officers and protected with barricades.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
Japanese patrol boats on Saturday and Sunday harassed the Taiwanese fishing vessel Tung Pan Chiu No. 28 in waters near the disputed Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台), allegedly because it crossed a designated zone for fishing activities stipulated by a 2013 Taiwan-Japan Fisheries Agreement.
“The Japanese Fisheries Agency is lying,” CAFO president Lien Shih-le (連石磊) said.
“As required by Fisheries Agency regulations, every Taiwanese fishing boat is equipped with a satellite monitoring system,” Lien said. “There is no way that a Taiwanese fishing boat would have gone beyond the exclusive economic zone.
“We are here to safeguard our fishing rights and the full sovereignty of our country,” he said. “We are sternly warning the Japanese government that we will never stop protesting until they stop encroaching upon our territory.”
Protesters also urged President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) administration to “toughen up” and take more actions to assert Taiwan’s fishing rights.
“If Tsai is unable to protect the Taiwanese, we should ask China’s People’s Liberation Army to protect us,” CPA head Zhou Qinjun (周慶峻) said.
One of the protesters waved a flag of the People’s Republic of China.
Police then escorted Lien, Zhou and several other protesters to the entrance of the building, where they handed an official letter of complaint to a representative from the Japanese office.
The groups moved their protest to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after the police ordered them to disperse at about 11:30am.
The protest came on the heels of an incident on Wednesday, when China Unification Promotion Party local chapter director Chen Ching-feng (陳清峰) tossed red paint at the association’s doorplate to protest Japan’s treatment of the Taiwanese fishing vessel.
Chen was later arrested for violating the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) and the paint was soon removed.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
RSS