Hurray for Kaohsiung! A city takes a brave new stand for universal human rights and freedom.
October 18, 2010
UNANIMOUS: The Kaohsiung City Council has sent its motion to bar Chinese officials who have been accused of violating human rights to the city and central governments
By Hou Cheng-hsu / Staff Reporter at The Taipei Times, Front page, October 18, 2010
Reposted here by Howard G. Fass of The Snow Lion Foundation, so this important development may receive additional circulation and attention...
The Kaohsiung City Council recently passed a motion demanding that the city government and private organizations not be allowed to invite to the city Chinese officials who have been accused of violating human rights. The motion included making the same suggestion to the central government, asking it to refuse such officials entry to Taiwan.
With Chinese officials increasingly leading delegations to Taiwan, Kaohsiung City Councilor Kang Yu-cheng of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suggested that Chinese officials who have violated human rights should be refused entry to the country.
The motion was supported by councilors from both the pan-blue and pan-green camps last week and it has now been submitted to the Mainland Affairs Council, the National Immigration Agency and the Kaohsiung City Government.
Kang said that because Guangdong Province Governor Huang Huahua, Shaanxi Province Vice Governor and Acting Governor Zhao Zhengyong, State Administration of Religious Affairs Director Wang Zuoan and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Deputy Secretary of Hubei Province Yang Song all have allegedly participated in China's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Falun Gong practitioners in Taiwan had filed a criminal lawsuit with the Taiwan High Court Prosecutors' Office against them when they visited Taiwan.
The central government should investigate the human rights record of these Chinese officials when checking their applications to enter Taiwan, Kang said.
Adding that Kaohsiung City is a modern metropolis that protects human rights, Kang said both the city and private organizations should therefore highlight the universality of human rights. If it is discovered that Chinese officials planning to visit Kaohsiung have a track record of violating human rights or if they have been charged and are being tried in court, such officials should not be invited, welcomed or given any support, she said.
While Falun Gong practitioners are suffering heavy persecution by the CCP, the motion is not aimed at pleasing the Falun Gong; no one who is guilty of persecuting anyone else should be welcomed to Kaohsiung, she said.
"I am very excited over the fact that the motion was unanimously passed by both the pan-green and pan-blue camps," Kang added. DPP Kaohsiung City Councilor Chou Lin-wen said that while China was important to the global economy, it ignores human rights and democracy.
"Kaohsiung is a friendly city but many people don't know very much about CCP persecution and that is why it is necessary to ask the central government to control these issues," she said.
Expressing a wish that every tourist area in Taiwan reveal the truth to Chinese tourists, she added: "Only by traveling to Taiwan will they be able to see the persecution that underlies the Chinese economy."
Falun Dafa in Taiwan welcomed the motion and called on each level of government to take a close look at the issue.
Cheng Chi-mei, a representative of the movement, said it was shameful to see Chinese officials coming to Taiwan shaking hands with Taiwanese and receiving expensive gifts with blood on their hands.