The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday reminded Taiwanese artists traveling to Malaysia to perform to apply for the correct permits, following the arrest of four Taiwanese opera artists for visa violations.
Four Taiwanese and two Singaporean opera performers were arrested in Penang on Thursday last week for allegedly breaching their social visit passes by staging performances, Malaysia’s Penang Immigration Department said.
MOFA said that Malaysian immigration authorities on Friday notified its office in the country of the arrests.
Photo: Lu Yi-hsuan, Taipei Times
MOFA’s office in Malaysia also received a phone call from friends of the four Taiwanese arrested the same day, the ministry said.
Malaysian authorities raided the grounds of a place of worship in Butterworth on Thursday after receiving a tip-off about a group of foreign nationals performing without valid permits, Malaysian and Singaporean news reports said.
The detained people were aged 40 to 60, they said.
Penang Immigration director Nur Zulfa Ibrahim was quoted as saying that the performers were dressed in costumes and in the middle of their act when arrested.
Checks showed that the group had only social visit passes without the necessary approvals for artistic activities.
The performers are being probed for violating their pass conditions as stipulated under Regulation 11(7)(a) of the Malaysian Immigration Regulations, the reports said.
The performers each face a maximum of six months in jail, a fine of up to 1,000 Malaysian ringgits (US$232), or both, upon conviction for the offense, the department said on Facebook.
However, Danny Tan, the organizer of the opera performance, said that immigration authorities had not told them of the reason for the arrests.
He said he was still in talks with Malaysian authorities on whether they can secure the artists’ release by paying a fine.
MOFA said the four entered Malaysia on a visa-free scheme and are under investigation for breaching the terms of their entry.
MOFA said Taiwanese should apply for the right visa when visiting Malaysia, warning that those who fail to do so could face fines and even prison time.
A small number of Taiwanese this year lost their citizenship rights after traveling in China and obtaining a one-time Chinese passport to cross the border into Russia, a source said today. The people signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of neighboring Russia with companies claiming they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, the source said on condition of anonymity. The travelers were actually issued one-time-use Chinese passports, they said. Taiwanese are prohibited from holding a Chinese passport or household registration. If found to have a Chinese ID, they may lose their resident status under Article 9-1
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
PROBLEMATIC APP: Citing more than 1,000 fraud cases, the government is taking the app down for a year, but opposition voices are calling it censorship Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday decried a government plan to suspend access to Chinese social media platform Xiaohongshu (小紅書) for one year as censorship, while the Presidential Office backed the plan. The Ministry of the Interior on Thursday cited security risks and accusations that the Instagram-like app, known as Rednote in English, had figured in more than 1,700 fraud cases since last year. The company, which has about 3 million users in Taiwan, has not yet responded to requests for comment. “Many people online are already asking ‘How to climb over the firewall to access Xiaohongshu,’” Cheng posted on
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS