A Uighur woman who immigrated to the US, where she published a book about her experiences in a Xinjiang concentration camp, yesterday said via videoconference that she continues to face threats from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
“Even while living in exile, I am constantly under surveillance and threats from China,” Mihrigul Tursun told a launch event at the legislature in Taipei for the Chinese translation of her book organized by the legislature’s Human Rights Committee.
“This book describes the terrible situation that all Uighurs are facing,” she said.
Photo: CNA
Mihrigul Tursun said she hoped the book would encourage people to speak up for Uighurs, and hopefully people would “not be fooled by the CCP.”
While writing the book, Mihrigul Tursun had to recall her experiences in the concentration camp, which gave her nightmares and affected her mental state, she said.
“I have recovered since publishing the book, but I am still afraid to reread it, because recalling those experiences is torture,” she said.
Mihrigul Tursun said that she was forced to move seven times within a two-year period after moving to the US due to constant harassment by CCP agents.
Beijing’s English-language China Global Television Network has also posted a video on YouTube calling her allegations “lies.”
During the book launch, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) said that a cross-party bill calling for sanctions against officials guilty of crimes against Uighurs in Xinjiang had been passed by the legislature.
New Power Party Legislator Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智) said that the CCP’s actions in Xinjiang and Tibet constituted genocide, as they involve the “use of state machinery to oppress an ethnic group’s culture, religion and language, and systematically prevent the biological continuation of the ethnic group.”
“As a nation that enjoys freedom and human rights, Taiwan should speak up for Uighurs, who cannot speak up for themselves,” DPP Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS