Taiwan slams UN after students barred from Geneva visit

TAIPEI: Taiwan fiercely criticised the United Nations yesterday after its students were barred from visiting a public hearing in Geneva as Beijing seeks to further isolate the island internationally.

It comes after Taiwan was excluded from a major World Health Organisation ( WHO) meeting last month under pressure from China, which still sees the island as part of its territory.

Cross- strait relations have worsened dramatically since Taiwan’s president Tsai Ingwen took power last year and Beijing has cut off all official communication with Taipei.

Taiwan’s foreign ministry said yesterday it had protested to the UN over the latest incident.

“The UN claims to respect freedom for all, regardless of race, nationality, political or other identities... to serve the political purpose of a particular member nation goes against its mission,” it said in a statement.

The ministry confirmed a Taiwanese professor and three students had not been allowed to listen to an open session from a public gallery at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

According to Chinese-language website UP Media, staff told labour relations professor Liuhuang Li- chuan of Taiwan’s National Chung Cheng University and her students that their passports were invalid documents. They said “Taiwan is not a country”, and the group needed China-issued identification, the report added.

Liuhuang sought help from the director-general of the UN Office at Geneva, Michael Moller, but said Moller told her nothing could be done as “Taiwan isn’t following the ‘one China’ policy”.

“Am I speaking to a spokesman for China?” Liuhang wrote on her Facebook page. — AFP