A transportation official who has been demoted for allegedly sexually harassing two legislative assistants yesterday dismissed the allegations.
Liao Yuan-lung (廖源隆), director of the Department of the East Rift Valley National Scenic Area under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications, yesterday flew to Taipei to offer his side of the story.
Although Liao acknowledged that he had struck an assistant of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chen Ying (
"But I let them hit me back," he said.
Liao, however, denied that he had touched the assistants on the breasts when the group returned from their gathering to the legislature afterward.
Liao said he felt sorry about what happened, and had reported the matter to his supervisor and personally apologized to both Chen and her two assistants.
Chang Hung-ruei (
He, however, said he had not seen Liao touch them on the breasts and that Chen had been the one to bring the liquor that night.
Chen called Chang a liar and asked Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Walis Pelin (
Chen also alleged that Liao has a long history of sexually harassing women and tearfully requested that the ministry dismiss Liao rather than demoting him.
"It is meaningless for him to offer an apology now," Chen said. "He apologizes only because of public pressure ... My assistants are here to do business for me, not to drink or play drinking games with you."
One of Chen's assistants, surnamed Wang, who was on leave yesterday, told the media by phone that she was angry when she saw the TV broadcast of Liao's press conference.
"He never apologized to us as he claimed," she said. "Although he came to our office, he left when we told him that she [Chen] was out."
Two DPP lawmakers lambasted Liao, with Tsai Chi-fang (
Premier Frank Hsieh (
Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Ling-san (
Meanwhile, the legislative assistants' union held an emergency meeting yesterday and decided to set up a 24-hour hotline for legislative assistants. They also encouraged those who have been sexually harassed by lawmakers or officials to come forward and report any incident.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching