The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) denied a report yesterday that it was planning to invite Falun Gong movement founder Li Hongzhi (李洪志) to visit Taiwan.
Responding to a report in the Chinese-language China Times, DPP acting spokesman Chuang Suo-hang (莊碩漢) said he had not heard about the idea and denied that the party had any plans to invite Li, whose movement is banned in China.
Asked if the invitation would be made by civic groups, Chuang said it would be within the scope of freedom of speech and religion and that the DPP would respect their decision.
The government of President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) should make its intentions clear, however, if it were to reject Li’s visit based on national security considerations or other grounds, he said.
An invitation to Li to visit Taiwan would be the third to an individual considered persona non grata by the Chinese government in recent months. DPP local government heads invited the Dalai Lama in late August to comfort victims of Typhoon Morakot and last month a pro-independence group invited exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer in conjunction with the screening of a documentary about her life at the Kaohsiung Film Festival.
While the DPP and civic groups contended the invitations were not political, critics saw them as attempts to create politically awkward situations for the president, who has pushed to improve ties with China.
The Ma administration allowed the Dalai Lama to visit, but it rejected Kadeer’s application for a visa.
Chuang panned the government’s snub of the Uighur activist, whom Beijing accuses of fomenting unrest in Xinjiang, as a bid to please China that not only ran counter to Taiwan’s principles as a free and democratic nation, but also contravened universal human rights values.
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