A series of lectures, film screenings and discussions are to be held in Taipei through April 25 to mark Freedom of Speech Day, which was yesterday.
The events, which began yesterday, are being organized by the Ministry of the Interior, the Memorial Foundation of 228 and the Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation.
The series, with the theme of “On the Road to Freedom of Speech,” comprises the “Human Library” lecture series, as well as the Human Rights and Freedom Film Festival and post-screening discussions, the organizers said.
Photo: CNA
From 2pm to 4pm on Saturday, Institute of Watch Internet Network chief executive officer Huang Yi-feng (黃益豐) is to give a lecture on the difference between freedom of speech on the Internet and cyberbullying, as well as regulation and self-discipline within the context of free speech online, they said.
From 3pm to 5pm on Saturday next week, Taiwan FactCheck Center editor-in-chief Summer Chen (陳慧敏) is to give a lecture exploring the purpose of the dissemination of false news, and how to identify such reports, the organizers said.
From 2pm to 4pm on April 24, Ou Su-ying (歐素瑛), a history professor at National Taiwan University, is to give a lecture discussing freedom of speech on school campuses, they said.
Screenings of South Korean director Kim Ui-seok’s debut feature After My Death, Oscar-nominated The Post by director Steven Spielberg, and the 2018 thriller Searching by director Aneesh Chaganty are to begin at 2pm on Sunday, on April 18 and on April 25 respectively, the organizers said.
The screenings are to be followed by discussions led by counseling psychologist Lin Chen-yi (林甄儀), Plain Law Movement senior editor Wang Ting-yu (王鼎棫) and UN Office of Information and Communications Technology consultant Jack Huang (黃一展) respectively, they added.
The events are to be held at the National 228 Memorial Museum in Zhongzheng District (中正), the organizers said.
April 7 was declared Freedom of Speech Day by the Executive Yuan in December 2016 to commemorate the death of democracy activist Deng Nan-jung (鄭南榕, also known as Nylon Cheng).
Deng, who founded the magazine Freedom Era Weekly in 1984 to fight for “100 percent freedom of speech,” died by self-immolation on April 7, 1989, as police broke into his office after he had been barricaded inside for 71 days to avoid arrest after he was charged with sedition for having printed a draft “Republic of Taiwan constitution” in 1988.
Taiwan’s path to achieving freedom of speech has been a “bumpy” one, Minister of the Interior Hsu Kuo-yung (徐國勇) said yesterday at the series’ opening ceremony at the museum, adding that it took hard work to reach the level of freedom the nation enjoys today.
The nation’s hard-won freedom of speech was made possible due to the sacrifice of individuals like Deng, Hsu said, urging people to defend it with “all our strength.”
More information about the events can be found at www.228.org.tw or www.moi.gov.tw.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS