Human rights advocates and several Taipei city councilors yesterday accused Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC, 臺北捷運) of political censorship, after it reportedly rejected an advertisement that mentioned “China” and “Lee Ming-che” (李明哲).
Amnesty International Taiwan had planned to post a comic advertisement on Taipei’s MRT lines on Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, to increase public awareness about Lee, a human rights advocate who has been detained in China since 2017, association secretary-general Chiu E-ling (邱伊翎) said.
However, before it would approve its use, the company asked the association to remove “China” and Lee’s name from the advertisement, she said.
Photo: CNA
The company is a state-run enterprise that receives more than 70 percent of its funding from the Taipei City Government, but it rejected an advertisement by Amnesty International, Taiwan Association for Human Rights secretary-general Shih Yi-hsiang (施逸翔) said.
The advertisement should be protected because Taiwan ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which says: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or through any other media of his choice,” Shih said.
The company had approved Amnesty International’s “write for rights” advertisement, but not its “write to Lee Ming-che” advertisement, despite the two being similar campaigns, independent Taipei City Councilor Lin Liang-jyun (林亮君) said.
This shows the widespread political censorship that the company exercises over advertisements, which has harmed freedom of expression and the advertising market, she said.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) frequently says that Taipei is free and democratic, but his actions show the contrary, independent Taipei City Councilor Lin Ying-meng (林穎孟) said, adding that Ko appears to be covering up for China, which is persecuting Lee.
Independent Taipei City Councilor Huang Yu-feng (黃郁芬) said that the company’s advertisement standards are inconsistent.
On the one hand, it rejected the advertisement about Lee due to its politically motivated content, while on the other, it allowed advertisements that hype Ko’s political performance, she said.
The company’s internal advertisement review committee did not detail its reasons for turning down the “write to Lee Ming-che” advertisement, but kept asking Amnesty International Taiwan to revise the content due to a “controversial political issue,” independent Taipei City Councilor Chiu Wei-chieh (邱威傑) said.
TRTC said that the review committee has 13 members, 10 of whom are external members: some professionals — experts on advertising, culture, the arts, architecture, journalism, law, insurance and gender equality — and some from the Consumers’ Foundation.
The company said that it bears the responsibility for not using advertisements that touch on politics, elections or controversial issues that lack a public consensus, as well as those that “offend good morals.”
It said that it had conferred closely with Amnesty International Taiwan on the matter, and it agreed not to use the advertisement after evaluating its potential effects.
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
COUNTERING HOSTILITY: The draft bill would require the US to increase diplomatic pressure on China and would impose sanctions on those who sabotage undersea cable networks US lawmakers on Thursday introduced a bipartisan bill to bolster the resilience of Taiwan’s submarine cables to counter China’s hostile activities. The proposal, titled the critical undersea infrastructure resilience initiative act, was cosponsored by Republican representatives Mike Lawler and Greg Stanton, and Democratic Representative Dave Min. US Senators John Curtis and Jacky Rosen also introduced a companion bill in the US Senate, which has passed markup at the chamber’s Committee on Foreign Relations. The House’s version of the bill would prioritize the deployment of sensors to detect disruptions or potential sabotage in real-time and enhance early warning capabilities through global intelligence sharing frameworks,
INTENSIFYING THREATS: Beijing’s tactics include massive attacks on the government service network, aircraft and naval vessel incursions and damaging undersea cables China is prepared to interfere in November’s nine-in-one local elections by launching massive attacks on the Taiwanese government’s service network (GSN), a report published by the National Security Bureau showed. The report was submitted to the Legislative Yuan ahead of the bureau’s scheduled briefing at the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The national security team has identified about 13,000 suspicious Internet accounts and 860,000 disputed messages, the bureau said of China’s cognitive warfare against Taiwan. The disputed messages focus on major foreign affairs, national defense and economic issues, which were produced using generative artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed through Chinese
RSS