Taiwan woman mistaken for Chinese fugitive, detained in Frankfurt

Taipei, Oct. 16 (CNA) Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said Thursday it is looking into an incident in which a Taiwanese woman was accused of being a Chinese fugitive and held by police for four hours at Germany's Frankfurt Airport.

Book publisher Cheng Ting (鄭莛) told CNA that she arrived at Frankfurt Airport early Monday to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair, but was stopped at passport control after she failed an automated face identification check.

Officials asked for additional identification and questioned if she was the person in the passport photo, to which she explained her face may have changed due to braces and dental surgeries.

She was then taken by police to a room for questioning, where they denied her request to contact diplomatic missions and compared her face to that of a wanted Chinese fugitive.

One officer accused her of being Chinese and claimed her passport was fake because the number could not be found, despite her repeated explanation that she was Taiwanese, she said.

"They started shouting at me [in English]. 'Who are you really? What's your purpose here? I was left shaking. It was like a Netflix crime show," Cheng said.

While inspecting her phone, police found she had posted an Instagram story on her way to the questioning room, behavior they deemed unlikely for a fugitive, and also discovered a membership card with an English signature matching her passport, confirming her identity.

After four hours, Cheng was released and told by police that the incident would be treated "as if it never happened" with no negative record.

However, she said she was also asked to sign "consent to restriction of freedom" waiver forms in German, English and Simplified Chinese without a clear explanation of her rights.

"I don't know why it took so long -- all they had to do was pick up the phone and call the Taiwanese representative's office," Cheng said.

At a Legislative hearing Thursday, Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said Taiwan's representative office in Frankfurt has been asked to seek clarification from German authorities about the incident.

Meanwhile, Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of MOFA's Department of European Affairs, said that the representative office has reached out to Cheng to provide assistance.