Falun Gong practitioners yesterday staged a mass sit-in in front of Taipei City Hall to mark the 21st anniversary of the start of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of the group’s members, calling on the world to recognize the CCP’s crime.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the CCP’s arbitrary passage of national security legislation for Hong Kong and its violation of press freedom by banning reports of excessive water levels along the Yangtze River, which caused flooding in 27 Chinese provinces, the world has woken up to the CCP’s true evil nature, Taiwan Falun Dafa Association president Chang Chin-hwa (張錦華) told a news conference.
Dubbing this year “the year of awakening,” Chang said Falun Gong has gathered signatures from 550 lawmakers from 27 nations for a joint statement to condemn the CCP’s brutal infringement of human rights and to recognize the efforts of Falun Gong.
Of the 550 politicians, 34 are Taiwanese legislators from various parties, which places the nation fourth in terms of the number of signatures gathered, she said.
Hopefully, the world will realize that now is the time to choose virtue and justice, to eliminate the malicious party that is the CCP and to liberate the more than 1 billion Chinese, she said.
“The Qing Dynasty 120 years ago waged a war against other nations and was obliterated. Today, China is also waging a war against other nations with viruses and its reign of terror,” New School For Democracy chairman Tseng Chien-yuan (曾建元) said.
With the pandemic, Beijing’s suppression of pro-democracy Hong Kong demonstrators and the severe flooding throughout China, he believes that the CCP’s days are numbered, he said.
The US administration is mulling barring CCP members and their families from entering the US, Tseng added.
The US House of Representatives in May passed a measure that seeks to punish Chinese officials for detaining more than 1 million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, he said.
Tseng said he is glad that the US fired the first salvo against the CCP’s wrongdoings and human rights atrocities, and hopes the rest of the world will join in the sanctions against the CCP.
Falun Gong has long been collating information on former CCP members, some of whom did not request anonymity when they revealed the party’s vices to Falun Gong, he said.
This information is invaluable and hopefully will offer the international community a clearer roadmap in its efforts to sanction the CCP, he said.
After the guests made speeches, Falun Gong practitioners lit candles and mourned in silence the estimated more than 4,500 fellow practitioners who have reportedly been killed by the CCP.
Before the sit-in, about 1,000 Falun Gong members marched in the city’s Xinyi District (信義) to raise awareness of their cause.
Taiwan is projected to lose a working-age population of about 6.67 million people in two waves of retirement in the coming years, as the nation confronts accelerating demographic decline and a shortage of younger workers to take their place, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan experienced its largest baby boom between 1958 and 1966, when the population grew by 3.78 million, followed by a second surge of 2.89 million between 1976 and 1982, ministry data showed. In 2023, the first of those baby boom generations — those born in the late 1950s and early 1960s — began to enter retirement, triggering
GLOBAL ISSUE: If China annexes Taiwan, ‘it will not stop its expansion there, as it only becomes stronger and has more force to expand further,’ the president said China’s military and diplomatic expansion is not a sole issue for Taiwan, but one that risks world peace, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday, adding that Taiwan would stand with the alliance of democratic countries to preserve peace through deterrence. Lai made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). “China is strategically pushing forward to change the international order,” Lai said, adding that China established the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank, launched the Belt and Road Initiative, and pushed for yuan internationalization, because it wants to replace the democratic rules-based international
ECONOMIC BOOST: Should the more than 23 million people eligible for the NT$10,000 handouts spend them the same way as in 2023, GDP could rise 0.5 percent, an official said Universal cash handouts of NT$10,000 (US$330) are to be disbursed late next month at the earliest — including to permanent residents and foreign residents married to Taiwanese — pending legislative approval, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. The Executive Yuan yesterday approved the Special Act for Strengthening Economic, Social and National Security Resilience in Response to International Circumstances (因應國際情勢強化經濟社會及民生國安韌性特別條例). The NT$550 billion special budget includes NT$236 billion for the cash handouts, plus an additional NT$20 billion set aside as reserve funds, expected to be used to support industries. Handouts might begin one month after the bill is promulgated and would be completed within
The National Development Council (NDC) yesterday unveiled details of new regulations that ease restrictions on foreigners working or living in Taiwan, as part of a bid to attract skilled workers from abroad. The regulations, which could go into effect in the first quarter of next year, stem from amendments to the Act for the Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及僱用法) passed by lawmakers on Aug. 29. Students categorized as “overseas compatriots” would be allowed to stay and work in Taiwan in the two years after their graduation without obtaining additional permits, doing away with the evaluation process that is currently required,
RSS