Political Hands Reach into NCC, Brutally Shutting Down CTI News and Stifling Freedom of Speech

In November 2020, the National Communications Commission (NCC), which is supposed to be an "independent agency," voted overwhelmingly to deny the license renewal for CTI News, leading to its forced removal from cable television on December 11. Since CTI News had long played an opposition role strongly supervising the ruling party, there were strong outside questions that the renewal review was "predetermined," and was a political assassination by the DPP government using state machinery against dissenting media. This move set a bad precedent in Taiwan''s history of democratization by directly shutting down a news station, seriously harming the freedom of speech and news independence that Taiwan is proud of, and sparking strong criticism from international and domestic human rights groups.