Taiwan Tati Cultural and Educational Foundation

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration is coming under further attack from abroad for failing to grant medical parole to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).

Taiwan’s foreign and justice ministries said last week that Chen, who is serving an 18-and-a-half-year prison sentence for corruption, had been provided with the best living conditions and healthcare allowed under law and that he did not qualify for medical parole.

Tibet’s spiritual leader the Dalai Lama gestures as he delivers a speech at the upper house members’ office building in Tokyo, Japan, on Nov. 13.
Photo: AFP

Acting on the president’s instructions, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has again denied a visa to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who had been invited by an international group to attend its annual regional conference in Taipei next month, sparking outrage among various organizations in the country.

The Dalai Lama “is welcome to travel to Taiwan in due course. However, we need to arrange a more opportune time for his visit,” Minister of Foreign Affairs David Lin (林永樂) said in a letter, dated Friday last week, to Freda Miriklis, international president of the International Federation of Business and Professional Women (BPW International), the non-governmental organization behind the event.