Focus Taiwan
Date: 01/28/2020
By: Chiang Chin-yeh and Emerson Lim

Washington, Jan. 27 (CNA) The United States House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs on Monday denounced the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) for blocking Twitter accounts that criticized ICAO's continued exclusion of Taiwan during a global public health crisis.

"The United Nation's @icao plays a valuable role in ensuring aviation security. But silencing voices that oppose ICAO's exclusion of Taiwan goes against their stated principles of fairness, inclusion, and transparency," the committee said in a Twitter post.

The tweet was a response to ICAO blocking critics, as revealed by U.S. news website Axios earlier the same day.

According to Axios, Jessica Drun (莊宛樺), a non-resident fellow at the Project 2049 Institute noticed on Jan. 25 that ICAO had blocked her on Twitter, two days after she criticized ICAO and the World Health Organization (WHO) for refusing to share knowledge with Taiwan's authorities in a tweet.

"This means civil aviation authorities for one of busiest regional airports do not receive up-to-date info on any potential ICAO-WHO efforts. This is how a virus spreads," Drun said the Jan. 23 tweet.
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