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Taiwan debates privacy after release of sex VCD

Officials from Kaohsiung City's Information Department seize around 400 copies of a VCD allegedly showing a sexual encounter involving Chu Mei-feng, a former Taipei City councilor and former director of Hsinchu City's Cultural Affairs Bureau. The VCDs are packed as free giveaways with copies of the latest issue of Scoop Magazine. PHOTO: CHANG CHUNG-YI, TAIPEI TIMES

An illegally released VCD may be about to reveal the full vulgarity of Taiwanese culture, and how it infringes peoples' privacy. This time, one of the victims is suspected of being a well-known former New Party politician apparently having sex in an apartment.

Hidden cameras have become a disturbingly commonplace phe-nomenon in Taiwan, and can be found not only in public toilets and hotel rooms, but also in private bedrooms.

Rumors in political circles have for some time suggested that several copies of a VCD featuring former New Party Taipei city councilor Chu Mai-feng (璩美鳳) having sex with a man in her bedroom have been sent to a large number of tabloids and magazines in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Chu, born in 1966, was once a shining star of the New Party who first rose to prominence in 1997 after becoming the first to denounce Sung Chi-li (宋七力), a cult leader who claimed to have supernatural powers.

She later regained the media spotlight by having a love affair with the sitting mayor of Hsinchu City Tsai Jen-chien (蔡仁堅), though she ended the relationship with Tsai last year.

Many Taiwanese reporters had heard the gossip but no one printed a story about it. Sex scandals infringing on people's privacy and legal rights do not attract the same kind of attention they used to.

Lo Tien-bin (羅添斌), head of the Cabinet news section of the Liberty Times, the Chinese-language sister newspaper of the Taipei times, said that the Liberty Times did not report the story last week because the newspaper could not confirm whether the woman on the VCD was Chu.

"First, we regarded it as a private matter with no bearing on the public interest. Second, we were not sure whether the woman really was Chu, especially given the fact that computer technology can easily be used to fake images of people," Lo said.

It became a public issue only after copies of the VCD were illegally distributed in political and media circles last week after reporters and legislative assistants screened it in the press room of the Legislative Yuan. By the weekend, feverish debate was underway on the Internet, on which parts of the VCD were released.

On pornographic Web sites, Web users inquired where they could get a copy, or discussed the behavior and physical attributes of the woman in the movie. On some discussion sites, there was serious debate about the human rights, privacy and public interest implications.

According to some of the weekend's cyber-gossip, copies of the VCD are selling in Taipei's Kuanghwa Market (光華商場) for NT$800.

The frenzy reached a crescendo on Monday when this weeks' edition of Scoop Weekly magazine (獨家報導) hit the stores with a free copy of the VCD attached.

All copies of the magazine sold out within hours and shopkeepers ordered additional copies. The extra copies never arrived as the Government Information Office and prosecutors took action against the weekly, searching its headquarters and confiscating all remaining copies yesterday.

An evening paper said yesterday that copies of Scoop Weekly magazine with the VCD attached were fetching up to NT$1,300 on the black market.

Web users appear to have divided into two diametrically opposed camps over the issue. On the site of a media-watching group called "Against the Media" (與媒體對抗), a user described the weekly's behavior as "shameless" and "deplorable."

"Don't forget that when Next first appeared in Taiwan, Shen Yeh (沈野), the publisher of Scoop Weekly, lashed out at the magazine on TV for damaging Taiwan's moral fiber," he wrote.

But Scoop Weekly is not short of supporters. Another Web user applauded the weekly's action, arguing that nothing less than the truth itself was at issue.

"It is what a paparazzi magazine thrives on. If it [the VCD] is fake, then she [Chu] should sue the magazine for every penny she can get; if it's true, then I'm afraid she won't dare sue anyone," he said. "The weekly is simply doing its job."

But as Shen and his daughter, Shen Jung (沈嶸), justified the magazine's action at a press conference yesterday, outraged irony and some no-holds-barred language reigned on the Internet.

A visitor to Chinatimes Interactive wrote, "Readers' right to know? Well, I would prefer to see VCDs of Shen Yeh and Shen Jung having sex."

Another visitor said, "If it's all about the readers' right to know, the next issue of the weekly should distribute a VCD demonstrating a rape."
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