Imposing different restrictions on immigrants according to their country's attitudes toward Taiwan is not discrimination and does not constitute any violation of human rights, Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) said yesterday.
Chatting with a group of journalists at an informal gathering in her office yesterday morning, the outspoken human rights activist, who heads a national human rights panel at the Presidential Office, came to the defense of the government for its decision that Chinese spouses coming to live in Taiwan must provide a financial certificate. The measure has since been overturned.
Lu said human rights can be divided into different categories, such as those for groups or individuals, as well as absolute human rights and relative human rights.
The human rights of a group prevail in cases that conflict with the rights of an individual. Individual human rights should be subordinate to group human rights, Lu said.
Noting that China is the only country out of the 192 states in the world that is hostile toward Taiwan and is building up its military forces with an eye to an invasion, it is only natural to somewhat restrict people's exchanges with China for the sake of national security, Lu said.
It is not a violation of human rights to discriminate between immigrants from friendly states and immigrants from bellicose states and impose different restrictions on them accordingly, Lu said.
She made the statement when asked to comment on measures subsequently dropped by the Ministry of the Interior that ordered Chinese citizens who want to reunite with their spouses in Taiwan to provide financial certificates proving that they have assets of more than NT$5 million.
This restriction, announced on March 2, was rescinded by the Ministry of the Interior the next day after causing an uproar among local human rights activists. They chastised the government for discriminating against Chinese and infringing on the human rights of both Chinese citizens and their Taiwanese spouses.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus yesterday said it opposes the introduction of migrant workers from India until a mechanism is in place to prevent workers from absconding. Minister of Labor Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) on Thursday told the Legislative Yuan that the first group of migrant workers from India could be introduced as early as this year, as part of a government program. The caucus’ opposition to the policy is based on the assessment that “the risk is too high,” KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Pei-hsiang (林沛祥) said. Taiwan has a serious and long-standing problem of migrant workers absconding from their contracts, indicating that
SPACE VETERAN: Kjell N. Lindgren, who helps lead NASA’s human spaceflight missions, has been on two expeditions on the ISS and has spent 311 days in space Taiwan-born US astronaut Kjell N. Lindgren is to visit Taiwan to promote technological partnerships through one of the programs organized by the US for its 250th national anniversary. Lindgren would be in Taiwan from Tuesday to Saturday next week as part of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs’ US Speaker Program, organized to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) said in a statement yesterday. Lindgren plans to engage with key leaders across the nation “to advance cutting-edge technological partnerships and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers,”
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