Coronavirus: WHO urged to lift ban on Taiwanese reporters

Reporters Without Borders
Date: April 29, 2020

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on the World Health Organization (WHO) to lift its ban on Taiwanese journalists, which violates the universal right to information and is undermining efforts to combat the coronavirus epidemic.

The international community is working together through the WHO to combat the pandemic, but the WHO – under pressure from China – continues to to bar Taiwanese media outlets and reporters from its events and press conferences on the grounds that the United Nations, of which the WHO is an offshoot, does not recognize Taiwan and its passport.

From 2009 to 2016, when Beijing was seeking a rapprochement with Taiwan, the UN and WHO nonetheless issued accreditation without any problem to Taiwanese media outlets and journalists that requested it.

RSF urges Beijing to stop pressuring the WHO, and asks WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres to put an immediate stop to this discriminatory practice, which deprives the Taiwanese scientific community and public of vital updates about the latest coronavirus discoveries.    [FULL  STORY]