The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) and the Taichung City Government received bomb threats this week, as the Shen Yun Performing Arts dance troupe began its tour of Taiwan in Keelung on Thursday.
The council’s Civil Ethics Office yesterday reported an e-mail sent to the council’s public opinion mailbox threatening to bomb the north office of the Central United Office Building in Taipei’s Zhongzheng District (中正) if the Shen Yun performances were not canceled.
Safety inspections have already begun at the building, and officers are tracking the sender’s IP address, the Taipei Police Department said.
Photo: AFP
Security checks have been conducted on all floors of the north and south buildings, and no dangerous items have been found, reports said.
The National Police Agency’s Sixth Special Police Corps has been assigned to enhance security measures.
The Taichung Cultural Affairs Bureau on Wednesday received a similar threat that a bomb would be detonated at Taichung’s Chung Shan Hall (中山堂) if performances scheduled for April 2 to 4 continued.
The Taichung Police Department’s Second Precinct was immediately notified, and dispatched officers and a forensic team to the scene.
The Taichung Criminal Investigation Corps also deployed a police canine unit with bomb-detection dogs for assistance.
No dangerous items or suspicious individuals were found.
Security measures and patrols have been increased around Chung Shan Hall to ensure public safety, Second Precinct Chief Chung Cheng-chih (鍾承志) said.
Shen Yun was founded by practitioners of Falun Gong, a school of Chinese qigong (氣功) which incorporates tenets of Buddhism. It was founded by Li Hongzhi (李洪志) in China in 1992.
Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
The Shen Yun Performing Arts group was founded by practitioners in 2006 and specializes in performances that blend classical Chinese dance with ethnic and folk dance.
The group has toured around the globe, although it often faces threats from China, which aims to obstruct performances or pressure venues to refuse to host the group.
No attacks have yet occurred and many of the threats have since been confirmed as hoaxes.
The source of this week’s threats is yet to be identified.
Shen Yun’s current tour, titled “China Before Communism,” is to travel to eight counties and cities throughout Taiwan until April 27.
Additional reporting by CNA
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
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.
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
‘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