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Lawmaker blasts VCD seizure

Taipei City Government's clampdown on copies of a disputed VCD that pokes fun at People First Party Chairman James Soong (宋楚瑜) will run into a legal minefield, a lawmaker warned yesterday.

"The Taipei City Government's claim that their confiscation of the VCD complied with the Broadcasting and Television Law (廣播電視法) was incorrect," Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said. "The city government has perverted the law."

Taipei City Government's Information Department on Thursday ordered the seizure of copies of Special Report, which lampoons Soong (宋楚瑜) and other mainly pan-blue politicians.

A group called Taiwan Media Revolution Studio produced the VCD to express their opinions on local politics and mock Soong's reconciliation with formal rival Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (連戰). It was circulated in night markets and bookstores nationwide.

Information Department head and city government spokesman Wu Yu-sheng (吳育昇) has said that the clampdown was carried out in accordance with the broadcasting law.

Wu was yesterday backed by Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who said that the action was a procedural clampdown following the instructions of laid down by the Government Information Office (GIO).

It was not the first and would not be the the last time the city government had cracked down on illegal products, Ma said.

But Chiu, an attorney and a member of the Legislative Yuan's Judiciary Committee, said the clampdown was far off the beam.

"Ma and his government have inappropriately imposed the broadcasting law to confiscate the VCD," Chiu said.

Chiu said the VCD was not produced by the media industry, a broadcasting station or the printed media, which were under the regulations of the broadcasting law. It was also not made as a program for broadcasting on the above media, Chiu added.

He acknowledged that GIO Director-General Huang Hui-chen (黃輝珍) could have been misguided when he told the Legislative Yuan on Friday that the GIO would consider seizing the VCD.

The lawmaker said Ma's legal misinterpretation could impair the constitutional protection of free speech.

"Following the abolishment of the Publication Law (出版法) in 1999, the government gave up compulsory censorship on publications," Chiu said. "The GIO only bans publication nowadays when it considers them to contain morally harmful content or a possible leak of national security confidentiality."

Lu Shih-Hsiang (盧世祥), CEO of the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence, agreed with Chiu.

Lu, an experienced correspondent, said that the government must handle sensitive issues relating to human rights and freedom extremely carefully.

"The city officials' analogy to the VCD as a videotape regulated by the broadcasting law was improper. The confiscation order blurred the jurisdiction of the law," Lu said.

He added that politicians could take the VCD producer to court if they felt that the content had defamed them.

"But it is not the city government's business to interfere in the publication with an incompatible law," he said.

Editor-in-chief of Contemporary Monthly magazine Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) bluntly criticized the legal enforcement as selective and politicized.

The exclusive clampdown on the Special Report was made with political motivation after Ma had been pressured by PFP city councilors, Chin said. The seizure recalled the atmosphere of the Martial Law era, Chin added.
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