|
New alliance targeting CCP ‘villains’
LISTED:Two Chinese officials, one currently in Taiwan, the
other set to visit in April, are accused of participating in or facilitating the
persecution of Falun Gong followers
By J. Michael Cole / Staff reporter
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Honorary
Chairman Lien Chan, left, and Chen Zhenggao, governor of China’s Liaoning
Province, appear together at a symposium on economic cooperation in Taipei
yesterday.
Photo: Fang Pin-chao, Taipei Times
A new alliance launched in Taipei on Tuesday last week has reportedly compiled a
list of more than 11,000 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials it says should
be barred from visiting Taiwan for the role they have played in human rights
abuses in China.
The “No CCP Villain International Alliance” (www.noccpvillain.org), which
comprises groups such as the Victims of Investment in China Association (VICA),
the Taiwan Friends of Tibet and the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working
Group, as well as human rights activists and individuals who were persecuted by
Chinese authorities, has handed its list to Democratic Progressive Party
Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃), who is expected to pass it on to the National
Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Epoch Times
reported on Monday.
The legislature passed a resolution in early December barring known CCP human
rights abusers entry into Taiwan. The resolution, co-introduced by Chen and
adopted by parties on both sides of the aisle, requires government authorities —
including the MAC and the NIA — to deny Chinese officials who are known to have
been involved in human rights abuses entry into Taiwan.
Greater Kaohsiung and Chiayi, as well as Changhua, Hualien, Miaoli and Yunlin
counties, have adopted similar, albeit separate, resolutions.
Despite the measures, later that month Beijing Deputy Mayor Ji Lin (吉林) was
allowed to visit the country despite claims by rights organizations that he had
played a key role in the repression of Falun Gong practitioners since 1998.
According to the Epoch Times, included among the 11,000-plus names are Liaoning
Governor Chen Zhenggao (陳政高), who arrived in Taiwan for a visit on Tuesday, and
Anhui Governor Wang Sanyun (王三運), who intends to visit in April. Both Chen
Zhenggao and Wang have been accused by the Falun Gong of participating in or
facilitating the persecution of its followers.
“The Alliance hopes the government will make public who it invites and its
reviewing process on these people,” Taiwan Friends of Tibet chairwoman Chow
Mei-li (周美里) told the paper. “The government should consider the list we have
provided and refuse entry to those officials who violate human rights.”
Although the alliance is based in Taipei, Teresa Chu (朱婉琪), a spokesperson for
the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group and an attorney, said its
scope was global and “belongs to the Chinese people around the world and will
exist till the day the CCP stops suppressing the human rights of people in
China.”
In addition to the persecution of Chinese rights activists, Falun Gong
practitioners and Tibetans, the alliance also takes into consideration abuse by
the CCP against China-based Taiwanese businesspeople.
Addressing a conference on cross-strait relations on Tuesday, Tung Chen-yuan
(童振源), director of National Chengchi University’s Prediction Market Center, said
the individual safety of China-based Taiwanese businesspeople continued to
deteriorate while cross-strait relations were ostensibly improving amid warming
ties.
VICA president William Kao (高為邦), whose factory in China was looted by
unidentified men in 1999, and who left China in 2001 after his requests for help
from Chinese authorities were ignored, was quoted by the Epoch Times as saying
that information from Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office showed that every year,
2,000 business investors from Taiwan were victimized in China, or more than
40,000 in the past two decades. Expropriation of property, jailing and court
cases in violation of due process are among the crimes committed against
Taiwanese in China, the paper said.
Kao said that as many cases likely went unreported, the total number probably
amounted to 100,000, adding that in the past 20 years, not a single Chinese
official had been punished for actions targetting Taiwanese businesspeople.
|
