A Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Taipei City councilor and a group of bloggers yesterday protested against China’s censorship of Plurk, a micro-blogging service similar to Twitter, and urged the public to voice their opposition to China’s move to curb freedom of speech.
They said China tried to block news of the SARS epidemic when the outbreak began in 2003, and it could ban Plurk to block the news if swine flu spreads to the country.
“This incident reminds us how China continues to be a threat to freedom of speech,” DPP Taipei City Councilor Yen Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠) told a press conference at the Taipei City Council.
Yang Hui-ju (楊蕙如), a Web manager for former DPP presidential candidate Frank Hsieh’s (謝長廷) campaign, said Plurk had become one of the most popular messaging services in Taiwan and the latest communication channel for independence activists.
A group of pro-independence plurkers even initiated an online activity, inviting other users to change their Plurk ID to the famous statement by free speech pioneer Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕) — “My name is … I support Taiwanese independence” — on Plurk earlier this month to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Deng’s death.
“We suspect that China may have noticed our activity and become wary of Plurk becoming a powerful platform for discussion about Taiwanese independence,” she said.
Yang said many DPP politicians, including Hsieh and former premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌), have joined the trend and become plurkers.
The DPP also set up a Plurk account to communicate with its supporters, she added.
The micro-messaging service posted an article titled “China, Plurk wants to make peace, not war! Please lift the ban!” on its Web site on Monday to share concerns about China’s ban.
It urged users to help spread the news and pressure China to remove the ban.
“We still have not received information from official Chinese sources on what prompted the ban. Was it some Plurkers talking negatively about China?” it said.
There are 77 incidents of Taiwanese travelers going missing in China between January last year and last month, the Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) said. More than 40 remain unreachable, SEF Secretary-General Luo Wen-jia (羅文嘉) said on Friday. Most of the reachable people in the more than 30 other incidents were allegedly involved in fraud, while some had disappeared for personal reasons, Luo said. One of these people is Kuo Yu-hsuan (郭宇軒), a 22-year-old Taiwanese man from Kaohsiung who went missing while visiting China in August. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office last month said in a news statement that he was under investigation
An aviation jacket patch showing a Formosan black bear punching Winnie the Pooh has become popular overseas, including at an aviation festival held by the Japan Air Self-Defense Force at the Ashiya Airbase yesterday. The patch was designed last year by Taiwanese designer Hsu Fu-yu (徐福佑), who said that it was inspired by Taiwan’s countermeasures against frequent Chinese military aircraft incursions. The badge shows a Formosan black bear holding a Republic of China flag as it punches Winnie the Pooh — a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — who is dressed in red and is holding a honey pot with
Celebrations marking Double Ten National Day are to begin in Taipei today before culminating in a fireworks display in Yunlin County on the night of Thursday next week. To start the celebrations, a concert is to be held at the Taipei Dome at 4pm today, featuring a lineup of award-winning singers, including Jody Chiang (江蕙), Samingad (紀曉君) and Huang Fei (黃妃), Taipei tourism bureau official Chueh Yu-ling (闕玉玲) told a news conference yesterday. School choirs, including the Pqwasan na Taoshan Choir and Hngzyang na Matui & Nahuy Children’s Choir, and the Ministry of National Defense Symphony Orchestra, flag presentation unit and choirs,
China is attempting to subsume Taiwanese culture under Chinese culture by promulgating legislation on preserving documents on ties between the Minnan region and Taiwan, a Taiwanese academic said yesterday. China on Tuesday enforced the Fujian Province Minnan and Taiwan Document Protection Act to counter Taiwanese cultural independence with historical evidence that would root out misleading claims, Chinese-language media outlet Straits Today reported yesterday. The act is “China’s first ad hoc local regulations in the cultural field that involve Taiwan and is a concrete step toward implementing the integrated development demonstration zone,” Fujian Provincial Archives deputy director Ma Jun-fan (馬俊凡) said. The documents
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