DEPORTEES FROM KENYA:A People First Party lawmaker accused Andrew Hsia of making a fool of lawmakers, with a Chinese fax saying a visit would be ‘inconvenient’
Taipei Times
Date: Apr 14, 2016
By: Stacy Hsu / Staff reporter
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia (夏立言) faced criticism at a
Mainland Affairs Council Minister Andrew Hsia speaks at the legislature in Taipei yesterday in response to questions about Taiwanese deported from Kenya to China. Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
legislative committee meeting yesterday over his “over-optimistic” interpretation of a response to the government’s request to visit Taiwanese detained in China following their deportation from Kenya.
At the Internal Administration Committee meeting, several lawmakers asked when the government planned to send officials to China to visit the 45 Taiwanese who were “illegally abducted” by China from Kenya on Friday last week and Tuesday.
Twenty-three of them were acquitted by a Kenyan court on Friday last week in a 2014 telecom fraud case, while the other 22 Taiwanese were among a group of 41 suspects arrested by Kenyan police on the same day.
When answering questions from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chao-shun (黃昭順) regarding visiting the detained Taiwanese, Hsia said that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office sent a fax earlier yesterday welcoming such a visit and that the council would endeavor to make the trip possible within the next two or three days. [FULL STORY]
