Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials have sued Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), demanding he be held accountable for the distribution of campaign literature which used an image of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist assault on New York City to attack President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
Despite this criticism, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials yesterday continued to defend the campaign poster, describing the poster's inclusion of photographs of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda terror figurehead Osama bin Laden as "creative."
"We want people to know that Chen is dangerous, that his actions are those of terrorism," said Lin Poh-jung (
Lin is also a former KMT Tai-chung mayor and a long-standing ally of Hu. Hu is a former foreign minister and one of the KMT's most promising candidates for top leadership roles.
"We chose to use the picture of Hussein because he unfairly controlled elections as the president of Iraq -- just like Chen Shui-bian," Lin said.
"In addition, bin Laden masterminded the attack on the World Trade Center ... Chen also likes to play games, pulling off tricks just like the Sept. 11 terrorist attack," Lin told the Taipei Times.
"The ad shows bin Laden saying `I am terrorist leader bin Laden, and I admire Taiwan's A-bian!'" he said, quoting the poster from memory.
On the poster, bold text also accuses Chen of "starting fires and inciting chaos wherever he goes."
The text is accompanied by a graphic of the collapse of one of the Twin Towers. A picture of Hussein holding a gun, saying "I am Hussein and you will all do as I say," figures prominently on the other side of the poster.
Around 600,000 copies of the poster were printed by the Tai-chung City KMT campaign headquarters 10 days before the election, Lin said.
"We had the foresight to think of using Hussein. We predicted that Chen would mess with the elections even before they happened," he said.
Lin said the poster had been produced by their publicity department, and that Hu, the director general of the campaign headquarters, had not participated in designing the ad.
But DPP campaign headquarters director general Chen Ta-chun (
"Even if Hu says that he didn't have anything to do with the poster, he is still the director general of the campaign headquarters that designed it," Chen said.
While calling the comparison of Chen Shui-bian with Hussein and bin Laden "inappropriate and wrong," the offending element that prompted the DPP lawsuit was instead an illustration urging residents not to vote in the referendum.
Chen Ta-chun said he had filed a lawsuit on March 18 against Hu on charges of interfering with electoral procedures according to Article 147 of the Criminal Code (
REPULSIVE
Meanwhile, the use of Osama bin Laden, Sept. 11, Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler in pan-blue campaign materials angered a well-known missionary figure in Taipei.
Bishop Stephen Cambio, who works with underprivileged and single-parent families in Taipei City's Ta-an District, said the KMT-PFP advertisement was "repulsive."
"To take a man [bin Laden] of such atrocity and terror and then attach him to a person like Chen is absolutely repulsive," he said.
A clearly upset Cambio said that the KMT-PFP campaign material was deeply offensive to him as an American and a Christian, and as a person who had ties to people killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
He said that non-partisan organizations like his were trying to unite Taiwanese people through mutual trust and respect as well as connect Taiwan with the rest of the world.
But, he said, "just to sit here and listen to this is unfathomable."
Cambio called on the person or persons responsible for the material to apologize, though he also said that the use of this material so soon after the KMT-PFP alliance apologized for using Hitler in a similar format pointed to an absence of sincerity and goodwill.
A scan of the contentious poster can be viewed at:
www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/photo/2004/03/23/2003114861
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
The Chien Feng IV (勁蜂, Mighty Hornet) loitering munition is on track to enter flight tests next month in connection with potential adoption by Taiwanese and US armed forces, a government source said yesterday. The kamikaze drone, which boasts a range of 1,000km, debuted at the Taipei Aerospace and Defense Technology Exhibition in September, the official said on condition of anonymity. The Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology and US-based Kratos Defense jointly developed the platform by leveraging the engine and airframe of the latter’s MQM-178 Firejet target drone, they said. The uncrewed aerial vehicle is designed to utilize an artificial intelligence computer
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS