The UN is violating press freedom by blocking access to Taiwanese journalists trying to cover the world body's major health meeting, Taipei's health minister said today.
"Denying the freedom of journalists to cover the meetings of the World Health Assembly is a violation of their freedoms," health and welfare minister Chen Shih-Chung told AFP.
"In any international democratic society this kind of action is not acceptable at all," he said.
His comments came after Taiwan yesterday launched a global appeal to be granted access to the World Health Organization's main annual meeting, after tensions with China led to its exclusion for a second straight year.
China sees self-governing democratic Taiwan as part of its territory awaiting reunification and has used its clout to diminish the island's presence on the world stage since Beijing-sceptic President Tsai Ing-wen took power in May 2016.
Last year was the first time in eight years that Taiwan was not granted access as an observer to the World Health Assembly (WHA), which opened its 71st edition in Geneva yesterday.
The UN says that since Taiwan is not recognised by the General Assembly, it cannot allow Taiwanese passport holders to enter UN premises and also cannot accredit journalists working for Taiwanese news organisations.
The WHO meanwhile has explained that it is not in a position to invite Taiwan to attend or to provide special accreditation to Taiwanese journalists to cover the WHA until a "cross-straits understanding" with Beijing is restored.
A number of Taiwan's diplomatic allies have written to the WHO urging the island's admittance while 172 members of the US Congress last week signed a petition calling for Taiwan to regain the "observer" status it held from 2009 to 2016.
But Chen warned that the lack of access to the WHA and the ban on Taiwanese journalists reporting on the event could lead to "information gaps" in how to prevent the spread of global diseases that could have "grave consequences".
"Excluding the 23 million Taiwanese from the WHO system is really very ironic, given that the theme of this year's WHA is universal health coverage," he said.
Yesterday's opening WHA day, there was a brief discussion on Taiwan but the issue was not included on the agenda.
Alex Azar, US Secretary of Health and Human Services, told the assembly today that this decision was "disappointing".
"It is difficult to reconcile our shared concern over cross-border infectious diseases with excluding representatives of the 23 million people of Taiwan from this gathering," he said.
China's foreign ministry has said the island was only able to attend the WHA from 2009-2016 because the previous Taipei government had a consensus with Beijing that there is only "one China".
But since Tsai of Taiwan's independence-leaning Democratic Progressive Party came to power, she has refused to acknowledge that principle.
Chen suggested today that the WHO should stand up to China. "I think WHO should have more real courage and should translate that courage into action in the interest of protecting global health," he said.
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