Despite repeated threats that he would file a lawsuit against National Tsing Hua University student Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) over an image posted on Facebook, China Times Weekly deputy editor-in-chief Lin Chao-hsin (林朝鑫) had yet to act on his threat yesterday, while Chen said he was ready to defend freedom of speech on the Internet.
“Instead of finding out the truth about the ‘walking fee incident,’ Want Want China Times Media Group chose to [threaten to] file a lawsuit against a college student for posting an image on Facebook,” Chen told a news conference in Taipei yesterday morning. “The lawsuit is not only against me, it’s against all netizens, and Taiwanese civil society.”
Chen was referring to a lawsuit that Lin has repeatedly vowed to bring against him for posting a snapshot of a CTiTV news report of a student protest against the merger of Want Want and cable TV service provider China Network Systems (CNS) on Wednesday.
Photo: Chen Ping-hung, Taipei Times
On Friday, Want Want Group’s media outlets — the Chinese--language China Times, China Times Weekly and CTiTV — all reported that the student crowd was paid to stage the protest, and implied, without providing evidence, that Academia Sinica research fellow Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌), who organized a separate protest earlier, was behind the incident.
Netizens took a snapshot from the CTiTV report on the protest that showed Lin among the crowd and questioned whether the media group was actually the one behind it.
Although Chen was only one of the hundreds of netizens who posted the image online, Lin seems to believe that Chen was the person who originally produced the image, since he was quoted by the China Times yesterday as saying that Chen was the person who took the photograph.
“Most of the people opposed to the merger of Want Want and CNS feel that way because they worry that a media giant ... threatens the freedoms of the press and of speech,” Chen said. “What Lin and the media group have been doing these past few days just proves that our worries are not baseless.”
“As a mere student, I feel helpless, but I’m determined to fight on, not only for myself, but also for freedom of speech on the Internet,” Chen said.
Lin said in a telephone interview that he would sue Chen to defend his reputation. Although he originally said he would file the lawsuit against Chen because he believed Chen was the one who took the snapshot, Lin later said that Chen was not his ultimate target.
“The purpose of the lawsuit is not to do something against a student, rather, it is to find out who’s behind the entire incident,” he said.
Lin told media that he would file the lawsuit at 2pm. As of press time, he had yet to file anything.
DEFENDING DEMOCRACY: Taiwan shares the same values as those that fought in WWII, and nations must unite to halt the expansion of a new authoritarian bloc, Lai said The government yesterday held a commemoration ceremony for Victory in Europe (V-E) Day, joining the rest of the world for the first time to mark the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. Taiwan honoring V-E Day signifies “our growing connections with the international community,” President William Lai (賴清德) said at a reception in Taipei on the 80th anniversary of V-E Day. One of the major lessons of World War II is that “authoritarianism and aggression lead only to slaughter, tragedy and greater inequality,” Lai said. Even more importantly, the war also taught people that “those who cherish peace cannot
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
Taiwanese Olympic badminton men’s doubles gold medalist Wang Chi-lin (王齊麟) and his new partner, Chiu Hsiang-chieh (邱相榤), clinched the men’s doubles title at the Yonex Taipei Open yesterday, becoming the second Taiwanese team to win a title in the tournament. Ranked 19th in the world, the Taiwanese duo defeated Kang Min-hyuk and Ki Dong-ju of South Korea 21-18, 21-15 in a pulsating 43-minute final to clinch their first doubles title after teaming up last year. Wang, the men’s doubles gold medalist at the 2020 and 2024 Olympics, partnered with Chiu in August last year after the retirement of his teammate Lee Yang
The Philippines yesterday criticized a “high-risk” maneuver by a Chinese vessel near the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in a rare incident involving warships from the two navies. The Scarborough Shoal — a triangular chain of reefs and rocks in the contested South China Sea — has been a flash point between the countries since China seized it from the Philippines in 2012. Taiwan also claims the shoal. Monday’s encounter took place approximately 11.8 nautical miles (22km) southeast” of the Scarborough Shoal, the Philippine military said, during ongoing US-Philippine military exercises that Beijing has criticized as destabilizing. “The Chinese frigate BN 554 was
RSS