15 refused entry due to ‘Republic of Taiwan’ stickers

Since the beginning of the year the Macau police has denied entry to 15 Taiwanese citizens holding passports with “Republic of Taiwan” stickers attached, the China Post reported. The stickers are considered to be a politically controversial and sensitive matter.
A diplomatic source told Taiwanese media that a woman had been denied entry in Macau twice in a few days. She first arrived at the local airport this month to attend the wedding of a friend and consented to the removal of the offending stickers after being denied entry. However, authorities proceeded to deport her, despite her willingness to see the stickers removed. Two days after the incident, the woman, now carrying a passport without any stickers, was denied entry into Macau a second time.  In response, police reportedly claimed that “since the authenticity of the passport was still under a process of validation, the document holder cannot be allowed to enter Macau.”
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of China (Taiwan) advised members of the public not to change their passports. In 2014, three Taiwanese residents were reportedly denied entry to Singapore for holding passports with the aforementioned stickers.
According to the China Post, the ongoing campaign to alter passport covers with tailor-
made Republic of Taiwan stickers (that replace the R.O.C. emblem on the document’s cover) was launched by
Taiwanese pro-independence groups.
“Chen Chih-hao, the initiator of the sticker campaign, previously said the idea was launched last year and more than 300,000 of the stickers have been produced so far,” the Taiwanese newspaper    reported.