Taiwan Church News
3486 Edition
December 17 – 23, 2018
Headline News PCT Open Letter To Taiwan: Let’s March Forward In Democracy With Love And Tolerance Reported by Lin Yi-yin In the past years, due to a series of China’s ruthless bullies, such as manipulating three Latin American countries breaking their diplomatic ties with Taiwan, forcing Taiwanese businessmen and entertainers in China to denounce their Taiwan identity and claim instead they are all from “Taiwan, China”, and inundating Taiwan society and social media with fake news and propaganda among the nine-in-one election in recent end November, PCT General Assembly formerly delivered an open letter, at Legislative Yuan (Taiwan’s Congress) on December 17, to Taiwan society and encouraged the public to persist on the road of democracy with love and tolerance! Deeply wary about current situation and future development of Taiwan society, therefore, PCT urged the public to maintain vigilance on the following five issues: 1. Do not let fake news spread out within Taiwan society. All people are responsible and shall learn to judge the felicity of the news sources. Especially, the journalists working in the media should comply with their professional journalism ethics and take up their responsibilities to check up the truth or falsehood of the sources of their reports. 2. On the issue of the homosexual marriage, particularly after Grand Justice’s Interpretation No. 748 and the referendum vote in last November, the public should carry on their care and concern of the current situations of Taiwan’s LGBT community and give legal spaces to the government to set up related laws to protect LGBT community based on the spirit of PCT Pastoral Letter On Homosexual Marriage. 3. As China had demonstrated an extensive interference in Taiwan’s election and her democracy in end November’s nine-in-one election, Taiwan society should consider to establish the self-defense mechanism, Defensive Democracy or Wehrhafte Demokratie, to prevent China’s impending aggressive sabotage of Taiwan’s hard-won democracy and freedom in past decades. 4. Holding “Taiwan Consciousness” as a thinking-subject, we should be united to think, speak and act to fight against kinds of penetration and division tactics used by China. There are still many differences within our society, though, we should carry on to build our ideal of “Commonwealth of Life” modeled on the democracy and freedom blessed by our predecessors’ hard efforts, in order to move Taiwan forward into the world. Let Taiwan be Taiwan, we pledge to work hard more to let Taiwan join the international community in the name of Taiwan. 5. At this critical moment, we earnestly call all Taiwanese people and all kinds of civil groups to put down kinds of prejudices. Let’s face the hard reality, overcome China’s intimidation and isolation, embrace each other with love and tolerance to march on the road of democracy and build a new and independent country, Taiwan, on this beautiful island! Translated by Peter Wolfe |