Taiwan Friends of Tibet (TFOT) yesterday criticized former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Wu Poh-hsiung (吳伯雄) for inviting Sichuan Province Governor Jiang Jufeng (蔣巨峰) to Taiwan, saying that Jiang was responsible for the repression and killing of Tibetan protesters during demonstrations in the province.
“We strongly condemn Wu’s invitation to Sichuan Province [Chinese Communist Party] Deputy General Secretary Jiang Jufeng — who is also the governor of the province — as monks [and civilian protesters] at Kirti Monastery in Ngaba [Chinese: Aba 阿壩] in Sichuan Province are being repressed by the military and police,” the organization said in a statement.
Wu extended the invitation at the end of a cross-strait business symposium in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, on Monday.
The invitation came about a week after several Tibet support groups in Taiwan — including the TFOT, the Regional Tibetan Youth Congress Taiwan, the Regional Tibetan Women’s Association Taiwan and Students for a Free Tibet Taiwan — visited the Mainland Affairs Council to urge it to pay more attention to the situation in Sichuan, a request that the council agreed to right away.
“Top officials from Sichuan Province, according to a legislative resolution adopted in December, should be put on the list of ‘unwelcome’ guests and be banned from entering Taiwan,” the TFOT statement said. “The Mainland Affairs Council should follow up on the invitation and block Jiang’s application to visit Taiwan.”
The legislature in December passed a resolution urging the government to ban the entry of human rights violators.
More than 2,500 monks at the Kirti Monastery have been barred from leaving the monastery since March following peaceful demonstrations by both monks and the public to remember the March 1959 uprising against Chinese rule. Chinese authorities launched a violent crackdown on the demonstrations, killing many, while arresting more than 300 demonstrators.
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