Taiwan is to host an Indo-Pacific forum on religious freedom in collaboration with the US next month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The forum is aimed at promoting religious freedom, human rights and democracy in the region, the ministry said in a statement.
The idea for an Indo-Pacific forum on religious freedom was conceived when Representative to the US Stanley Kao (高碩泰) in July last year attended the first Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom in Washington, which convened leaders from around the world to discuss the challenges facing religious freedom and promote greater respect for religious liberty, the ministry said.
Photo: Reuters
At the meeting, Kao engaged in talks with several US officials and representatives from religious groups on the issues and said that Taiwan would welcome the opportunity to host a similar meeting in the first half of the year, Department of North American Affairs head Vincent Yao (姚金祥) said.
As an indispensable partner in the Indo-Pacific region, Taiwan is willing to contribute to religious freedom and democratic development in the region, the ministry said.
The ministry said it has commissioned the Taipei-based Taiwan Foundation for Democracy to host the forum.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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