The Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office’s (TECRO) Cultural Center in Washington has rejected a request to allow Academia Sinica researcher Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) to deliver a speech at the facility, Overseas Community Affairs Council Minister Steven Chen (陳士魁) said yesterday.
TECRO had asked the opinions of 63 people who serve as honorable consultants and executives of the culture center about the request and received 54 replies: Nine gave their consent, 38 opposed it and seven said they do not have an opinion on the matter, Chen said.
The North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association, Taiwanese American Science and Technology Association and Taiwanese American Senior Association have invited Huang — a leader of the Sunflower movement that occupied the legislature in March and April in protest against the government’s handling of a proposed service trade agreement with China — to speak on the “predicament and prospects facing Taiwan’s democracy” on Saturday.
Last week, the organizers announced the speech venue, stirring up debate among Taiwanese expatriates in the US and prompting Representative to the US Shen Lyu-shun (沈呂巡) to defer the question to the 63.
Chen said there were three reasons why the application was rejected.
First, the organizers announced the speech venue as a fait accompli before they obtained permission from the culture center; second, the organizers threatened to call a press conference unless the culture center agreed to rent out the hall, and that should not be encouraged; and third, the culture center is not a place to hold events that may arouse political controversy, Chen said.
Regulations governing these overseas facilities state that the culture center should not host any political or electoral activity, Chen said, adding that it is customary that such activities be held either in a hotel or at the Taiwan Presbyterian Church of Washington.
As for those who supported Huang, they said that any issue related to Taiwan can be discussed at the center, with some adding a condition that organizers should promise not to damage the center’s property, Chen said.
If the organizers had not announced the speech venue before they had obtained a permit, the culture center could have agreed to loan the hall, Chen said.
“If it were not for the controversial way they organized the event, the culture center would not have to take the issue to TECRO,” he said.
Chen said he hoped to bring unity to Taiwanese expatriates, despite the long-standing blue-green divide in the community.
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS