Pro-independence groups yesterday urged the government to tackle what they said was Hon Hai Group chairman Terry Gou’s (郭台銘) censorship of media, after a system operator partly owned by Gou cut off Formosa TV’s (FTV) channels on Friday.
The Taiwan Society and other groups told a news conference in Taipei that they object to Gou’s attempt to monopolize the media, given his massive investments in China, and they called on the National Communications Commission (NCC) to work harder to defend press freedom.
FTV is the nation’s only TV station not tainted by Chinese influence, Union of Taiwan Teachers (UTT) executive director Hsiao Hsiao-ling (蕭曉玲) said, calling on the Democratic Progressive Party administration to treat the issue as a national security crisis.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
As China has been working steadily toward its aim of unification, Taiwan should not allow those close to the Chinese government to deprive Taiwanese of “their right to know,” Northern Taiwan Society secretary-general Pan Wei-yu (潘威佑) said.
Gou and Lu Fang-ming (呂芳銘), a Hon Hai Group vice president, last year purchased Singapore-based Macquarie APTT Management Pte, the parent company of Taiwan Broadband Communications (TBC), as individuals.
TBC is the nation’s third-largest multiple systems operator, with five broadcasting systems.
FTV last year packaged its three channels — Formosa News, Formosa Taiwan and Follow Me TV — into one deal, but TBC only wanted to air Formosa News.
TBC on Friday stopped airing Formosa News, affecting about 700,000 households in Taichung, southern Taoyuan, and Hsinchu and Miaoli counties.
It did so because FTV had not authorized it to broadcast Formosa News as of Thursday midnight, TBC said yesterday in a statement.
It had invited FTV to send representatives to negotiate on Monday, but FTV did not send anyone, the statement said, adding that another invitation had been issued for a meeting today.
The commission on Friday said it had hosted 11 meetings with TBC and FTV officials, but the two sides would not budge from their positions.
DELUSIONAL: The male patient said he did not know that the woman had mental problems, but the court said that her being restrained in isolation should have given him pause The Taiwan High Court has ordered the Jhudong branch of the Taiwan National University Hospital and a male patient to jointly pay a former female patient’s family NT$400,000 in compensation after the man had sex with the woman, who has mental problems, while hospitalized. The 26-year-old woman has been diagnosed with a mental disorder, a symptom of which is that she obsessively seeks to have sex, her mother said. The mother filed a formal complaint and sought damages from the hospital and the male patient surnamed Chen (陳) after finding out that her daughter had sex with the man while
The Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) should not use the government’s disease-prevention policy as an excuse to block people’s access to the Taipei Railway Station’s main hall, the Taiwan International Workers’ Association said yesterday. The association held a protest at the station after what organizers said were about 400 people staged a sit-in on Saturday to demonstrate against the TRA’s proposal to ban sitting on the floor of the main hall. In accordance with the Central Epidemic Command Center’s disease-prevention measures, large gatherings have been banned in the hall since the end of February. After protesters yesterday expressed their grievances at the southern
SEEKING OPTIONS: A Sinyi Realty corporate realty official attributed the spike to proposed legal changes in the territory and the ongoing pro-democracy protests More Hong Kongers purchased real estate in Taiwan last year than other foreigners, Ministry of the Interior statistics showed. The ministry attributed the spike to a proposed extradition law that the Hong Kong government submitted last year, which would have allowed suspects to be sent to China and other nations, which sparked mass protests that are continuing. The rate of purchases last year by Hong Kong natural and juridical persons stood at 40 and 60 percent respectively, with building area purchased by both standing at 47.41 percent and 52.59 percent respectively, ministry data showed. Department of Land Administration statistics showed that Hong Kongers
NEW RECRUITS: Nearly 9 million students are to graduate from university next month, and Beijing plans to use incentives to convince them to join the military, an analyst said Rising unemployment in China due to the COVID-19 pandemic could benefit the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) by allowing it to attract new, better educated recruits, a Taiwanese security researcher said on Friday. Chen Ying-hsuan (陳穎萱), a policy analyst at the Division of Chinese Politics and Military Affairs at the Institute for National Defense and Security Research, a government-funded think tank, made the remarks in an article published in the Defense Security Biweekly magazine. About 8.74 million university students are expected to graduate in China next month, while Chinese companies’ demand for fresh graduates fell 16.77 percent annually in the
RSS