Kadeer = No Visa

The BBC reports on the Ma Administration's refusal of a visa to Rebiya Kadeer. The report is...well, my comments are in [brackets].

Taiwan will not allow exiled Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer to visit the island as she had planned, a government official has said.

Ms Kadeer, a Chinese Muslim from Xinjiang, had been invited by an entertainer close to the opposition.[1. which opposition, Uighur or DPP? 2. Why are we told that she is a Chinese Muslim? 3. The invitation was jointly from GUTS United (Chthonic's Freddy Lim) and from Paul Lin's Anti-Communist youth group, according to other reports.]

China has accused Ms Kadeer of orchestrating recent violence in Xinjiang - a charge she denies.[Who cares what China says! Why don't media groups demand evidence before they print Beijing smears? Wouldn't it have been better to add "although no evidence exists to support this charge" to properly contextualize it?]

In July about 200 people were killed in riots between Uighurs and Han Chinese in which mostly Han were killed.[...yet the BBC has no trouble adding the detail that more Hans were killed than Uighurs, a pro-Beijing claim.]

Taiwan is self-ruled after breaking away from China at the end of the civil war in 1949. Beijing considers the island part of its territory.[Taiwan "broke away" from China? Is this a media report from an alternate reality? Yes, and clearly a Beijing-centric one! Again, we are not told what Taiwan considers Beijing to be, only what Beijing thinks.]

"We have decided not to allow Kadeer entry considering that her visit could affect national interest and social order," Interior Minister Jiang Yi-huah was quoted as saying to members of parliament.[No mention of any relations between KMT and CCP, or indeed, any political context at all.]

Despite opposition from China, a documentary about Ms Kadeer was screened this week in Taiwan's second city, Kaohsiung.["Despite opposition from China!" As if Taiwan should be kowtowing whenever China opposes! Why even mention that? "A documentary about Ms Kadeer was screened this week in Taiwan's second city, Kaohsiung." Could even add "where it was well-received." Nothing positive about Kadeer, Taiwan, or the documentary appears in this report. ]

Local tourism officials had spoken out against the move, Taiwanese media reported, fearing it would drive Chinese tourist numbers down.[Yet another negative item about the screening. Note that the BBC does not report that some tourism officials said the opposite, nor does it make any attempt to find out whether such a thing occurred.]

An incredible article. By my count 8 "paragraphs", six of which are completely Beijing-centric in their approach to the story. Shameful.

Speaking of shameful, how about that visa denial? About all you can say is, at least they didn't say outright that she was a terrorist.

UPDATE: Haha. Was I wrong, what I get for relying on the BBC to reliably report anything about this case. They DID say she was a terrorist, as the Taipei Times noted today.

Jiang said the World Uyghur Congress was related to a terrorist organization, while many countries had also been alerted to the congress’ general secretary.

“If Kadeer visits Taiwan, the purpose of her visit would have something to do with Xinjiang’s independence movement,” Jiang said.

“Like the precautionary measures we took during the nation’s previous two important [international] sports events [the World Games and the Deaflympics,] we are trying to prevent terrorism from overshadowing Taiwan. Therefore, we decided to give priority to our national interests,” he said.

Hmmm...I wonder which organization has racked up the greater number of Han Chinese killed, the World Uighur Congress, the CCP, or the KMT? But our fearless KMT Administration official has the stones to say that the WUC is connected to a terrorist organization. The director of GUTS United had some excellent criticisms of the government on the issue:

Liao Wei-cheng (廖偉程), executive director of Guts United Taiwan, however, criticized the government for making a decision before Kadeer had even filed a visa application.

“If the Chinese Nationalist Party government doesn’t even bother to wait to see Kadeer’s visa application or look at her reason for wanting to come to Taiwan before refusing her visit, I suspect that there’s a blacklist, and we seem to have returned to the White Terror era,” Liao told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview yesterday. “The government said they made the decision based on the interests of the country — of which country? Of China?”

He said that as a democracy with the rule of law, Taiwan should issue a visa to Kadeer if she follows the proper procedure.

“The refusal has damaged Taiwan’s image in the international community,” he said.

Liao said that if the Taiwanese government says Kadeer has connection to terrorists, “Are we accusing the US of harboring terrorists?”

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Daily Links:

• And now for a totally different (and extremely informed) interpretation of the Chen Shui-bian affair from the World Socialist Weekly.
• Canada moves closer to visa-free entry for Taiwanese.
• Ou again hints that HSR Corp needs lower interest rates on its loans. The Kaohsiung MRT, hemorrhaging cash, looks to be next gov't takeover target. The hell with it, take over all BOT projects, says local paper.

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