Paraguay’s representative at ICAO said they were warned against speaking for Taiwan at the assembly.
The News Lens
Date: 2016/09/30
By: ZiQing Low
After refusing to invite Taiwan and blocking Taiwanese reporters from a triennial air safety assembly,
the Montreal-based International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) has reportedly warned participants against “speaking out for other countries.”
The assembly is held from Sept. 27-Oct. 7 at the ICAO headquarters in Montreal.
Paraguay’s ambassador to Canada Julio Cesar Arriola Ramirez told reporters at a dinner hosted by Kung Chung-chen (龔中誠), representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Canada, that the ICAO secretary general had warned them that their microphones would be muted if they tried to speak on behalf of Taiwan, Taiwan’s Central News Agency (CNA) reports.
However, the Chinese-language United Daily News reports that Solomon Islands Minister of Communications and Aviation Peter Shanel said he had not heard of such warnings. Shanel said that since he represented a sovereign country, no one could limit his freedom of speech. [FULL STORY]