Tseng Yen-wei (
During the campaign for the Taipei County commissioner election in 2005, Tseng, a university student at the time, created a blog satirizing Chou, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) candidate.
Now 24 years old, Tseng is a graduate student at National Taiwan Normal University.
Although Chou was elected, he filed a lawsuit against Tseng for "spreading rumors or untrue statements" with the "intention of preventing a candidate's election," and copyright violation.
CHARGES
The first two charges were based on an entry on Tseng's blog about a loan dispute between a bank and Yung-chou Corporation.
Democratic Progressive Party legislative candidate Lo Wen-chia (
IMITATION
The copyright violation action was based on Chou's claim that the name of Tseng's Web site, "Wiego's blog," imitated Chou's official campaign Web site "Weigo's blog."
Earlier this month in court, Chou requested NT$50 million (US$1.5 million) in compensation in addition to criminal charges, and asked Tseng to run apology ads in three Chinese-language newspapers for three consecutive days, Tseng said.
"I don't understand why a politician -- and commissioner of the biggest county in Taiwan -- would do something like this to a student," Tseng said at the press conference.
"Of course he [Chou] knows that I don't have NT$50 million, so he's asking for the amount with the intention of putting me in debt for my entire life," Tseng said.
Lo, as well as bloggers in support of Tseng, accompanied him at the press conference.
"Tseng only quoted me on his blog in the entry on the Yung-chou case," Lo said. "Chou should have sued me, not Tseng."
Tseng said that both he and his family are suffering as a result of the lawsuit.
"If I'm declared guilty next Monday, no one would ever dare criticize politicians on the Internet again."
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