Parliamentarians in the UK and Italy have called on the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to invite Taiwan to attend its general assembly as an observer so that Taiwan cam make concrete contributions.
Nigel Evans and Lord Rogan, cochairs of the British-Taiwanese All-Party Parliamentary Group, issued a joint statement, saying that the group has long supported Taiwan’s meaningful participation in international organizations.
“We were dismayed to learn that Taiwan has yet to be invited to participate in the upcoming 88th Interpol General Assembly in Chile as an observer due to unnecessary political considerations,” they said in the statement. “We believe this will in turn obstruct the collective interests of the international community.”
Photo: Reuters
Citing Article 2 of Interpol’s constitution, Evans and Rogan said that its aims are to ensure and promote the widest possible mutual assistance between police authorities around the world.
“Transnational crime is rampant in today’s globalized world, thus we must establish a reliable and seamless global law enforcement network without gaps,” they said. “To this end, the cooperation of police authorities from all over the world is indispensable, and Taiwan’s presence is essential to the realization of this objective.”
Taiwan’s population of 23.5 million is bigger than that of more than 100 Interpol member countries and it is a major hub for the movement of capital, goods and people, with more than 68.9 million passengers passing though last year alone, they said.
“Taiwan’s ability in sharing international security intelligence and combating cross-border crime would contribute to the global security and counter-terrorism efforts,” Evans and Rogan said.
“Its continued exclusion from Interpol undermines the global endeavor to fight terrorism, illicit drugs, telecom fraud, cybercrime and other new forms of transnational crime, diminishing the effectiveness of the international law enforcement network,” they said.
The parliamentary group supports Taiwan’s participation at Interpol, at its general assembly as an observer and at its meetings, mechanisms and activities, the statement said.
Representative to the UK David Lin (林永樂) thanked the British group for its support for Taiwan’s participation at international organizations.
Separately, 16 parliamentarians in the Italy-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Group on Sept. 30 wrote a letter to Interpol president Kim Jong-yang and Interpol secretary-general Jurgen Stock, expressing support for Taiwan’s bid to participate as an observer at the general assembly in San Diego from Tuesday to Friday next week.
The letter was initiated by Italian Senator Lucio Malan, who heads the Italian group, as well as his two deputies Marco Di Maio and Alessandro Pagano.
The 16 Italian parliamentarians said that without participation at Interpol, Taiwan cannot gain access to global criminal databases through the organization’s I-24/7 police communications system or other channels.
This exposes Taiwan to international criminal activity and leaves a loophole in the global security network, they said, adding that Taiwan’s exclusion from Interpol was purely a political issue.
Taiwan should not be excluded, given that it has been working closely with the international community, sharing the common goals of many other countries to combat crime, the Italian group said.
Four other Italian parliamentarians — Paolo Arrigoni, Massimo Candura, Emanuel Pellegrini and Manuel Vescovi — on Thursday called on Rome to say whether it had any concrete plans to help Taiwan gain participation at Interpol.
The Republic of China was an Interpol member country until 1984, when China gained admission and started pushing for Taiwan to be re-designated as “China, Taiwan.” In the face of those circumstances, Taiwan withdrew from Interpol.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods