Kaohsiung police were incensed by a recent “official document” sent by police in China’s Guandong Province ordering Taiwanese police to follow up on a criminal case.
Officers at Kaohsiung’s Yancheng District (鹽埕) Police Station were perplexed after receiving the document by mail earlier this week, which originated from the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s Boluo County Shuishang District Police Precinct.
After opening the letter, the Kaohsiung police said, they were offended by the audacity of a Chinese police precinct ordering them to contact the family of a Taiwanese man surnamed Huang (黃), who was under arrest at a detention center in Boluo County and was a suspect in a criminal investigation.
Photo: Copied by Huang Chien-hua, Taipei Times
Accompanying the letter was a “Notice of Detention for Investigation,” which presented information on Huang’s arrest and the background of his case.
An officer at the police station was quoted as saying: “What is going on here? Is Taiwan part of China now? They are ordering us to follow up on an investigation.”
Kaohsiung City Police Chief Chen Chia-chin (陳家欽) said he has instructed police units in the city not to comply with any request made by units of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, as they had violated terms of the Cross-Strait Joint Crime-Fighting and Judicial Mutual Assistance Agreement (海峽兩岸共同打擊犯罪及司法互助協議), which was signed by Taiwan and China in 2009.
The Ministry of Public Security is China’s principal police authority and is responsible for law enforcement.
Yancheng District Police Chief Yen Ming-chung (顏明忠) rejected reports that his officers followed up on the order from their Chinese counterparts to contact Huang’s family.
“The ‘official document’ sent from China was in obvious violation of the 2009 mutual legal assistance agreement. We did not comply with the letter’s request,” Yen said on Friday.
The proper channel for agents of the Chinese ministry to submit requests to Taiwanese law enforcement is through the Cross-Strait Affairs Section of the Criminal Investigation Bureau at the National Police Administration, which would then pass on documents or notifications to the appropriate units at the county or city level, Chen said.
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