Taiwan’s Apple Daily yesterday issued a statement condemning the hacking of the Next Media Group’s (壹傳媒集團) Web sites earlier yesterday, saying that it was a severe infringement on media liberty and political oppression against Hong Kongers’ efforts toward democracy.
The Apple Daily statement said there was reason to believe that the attacks originated from China and were meant to batter the determination of Hong Kongers to achieve democracy, and to attack the pro-general elections Next Media Group, because the electronic voting system set up to gather support for general elections in Hong Kong had also gone down.
“The attack on the Apple Daily today shows that no other media would be safe unless they, like Chinese media, delivered the same message [as other Chinese media],” the statement said.
“Taiwan should take heed of what is happening to Hong Kong as it is very possibly what Taiwan would face [should it become assimilated into China],” it added.
The statement said the Apple Daily would not bow down to oppression and would not deviate from its stance of supporting democracy, adding that it would do its best to get the Web site up and running, and use every possible channel available at its disposal, such as YouTube and Facebook fan pages, to send out its news stories.
Apple Daily (Taiwan) president Eric Chen (陳裕鑫) said that due to attacks in February, the group had already reinforced its defenses against hacking, but the attack this time was stronger than any other attempts previously seen and it overwhelmed the system.
“The DPP’s [Democratic Progressive Party] longstanding position is that the government is obligated to protect the stability and security of the flow of information of all media outlets and platforms, and the interference of the information flow would be a form of infringement of the freedom of the press, which is not allowed in any democracy,” DPP spokesperson Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) said yesterday.
DPP lawmakers Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) and Huang Wei-cher (黃偉哲) criticized Beijing’s denial of freedom of the press and its authoritarian rule, calling for Taiwanese to “see the true face of what China is all about.”
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, a cyberattack on a voting Web site threatened to derail an unofficial referendum on democratic reform in Hong Kong, seen as a gauge of the desire for change in the former British colony that reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, an organizer said late on Tuesday.
The referendum is seen as an important test for pro-democracy activists who believe the public in freewheeling Hong Kong are dissatisfied with the pace of political reform promised by Beijing.
The Web site received “billions of visits” in the run-up to the vote that starts tomorrow, said Benny Tai, an associate professor of law at the University of Hong Kong and one of the referendum’s organizers.
Such moves are known as distributed denial-of-service attacks, which aim to overwhelm a Web site with requests so regular that visitors cannot reach it.
“We are considering, if the online system does not work as planned, we may extend the voting time so that we can get as many votes as possible, as planned. We had hoped to get about 200,000 votes, even 300,000,” Tai said. “Nothing will deter us from going on. We will continue.”
Voters would be able to cast ballots at 15 voting stations throughout Hong Kong on Sunday if the Web site is down.
Additional reporing by Chris Wang
A magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck off Yilan at 11:05pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter was located at sea, about 32.3km east of Yilan County Hall, at a depth of 72.8km, CWA data showed There were no immediate reports of damage. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Yilan County area on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. It measured 4 in other parts of eastern, northern and central Taiwan as well as Tainan, and 3 in Kaohsiung and Pingtung County, and 2 in Lienchiang and Penghu counties and 1
A car bomb killed a senior Russian general in southern Moscow yesterday morning, the latest high-profile army figure to be blown up in a blast that came just hours after Russian and Ukrainian delegates held separate talks in Miami on a plan to end the war. Kyiv has not commented on the incident, but Russian investigators said they were probing whether the blast was “linked” to “Ukrainian special forces.” The attack was similar to other assassinations of generals and pro-war figures that have either been claimed, or are widely believed to have been orchestrated, by Ukraine. Russian Lieutenant General Fanil Sarvarov, 56, head
FOREIGN INTERFERENCE: Beijing would likely intensify public opinion warfare in next year’s local elections to prevent Lai from getting re-elected, the ‘Yomiuri Shimbun’ said Internal documents from a Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) company indicated that China has been using the technology to intervene in foreign elections, including propaganda targeting Taiwan’s local elections next year and presidential elections in 2028, a Japanese newspaper reported yesterday. The Institute of National Security of Vanderbilt University obtained nearly 400 pages of documents from GoLaxy, a company with ties to the Chinese government, and found evidence that it had apparently deployed sophisticated, AI-driven propaganda campaigns in Hong Kong and Taiwan to shape public opinion, the Yomiuri Shimbun reported. GoLaxy provides insights, situation analysis and public opinion-shaping technology by conducting network surveillance
‘POLITICAL GAME’: DPP lawmakers said the motion would not meet the legislative threshold needed, and accused the KMT and the TPP of trivializing the Constitution The Legislative Yuan yesterday approved a motion to initiate impeachment proceedings against President William Lai (賴清德), saying he had undermined Taiwan’s constitutional order and democracy. The motion was approved 61-50 by lawmakers from the main opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the smaller Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), who together hold a legislative majority. Under the motion, a roll call vote for impeachment would be held on May 19 next year, after various hearings are held and Lai is given the chance to defend himself. The move came after Lai on Monday last week did not promulgate an amendment passed by the legislature that
RSS