A man from Kaohsiung City was indicted yesterday on charges of intimidation and hindering public security for sending threatening letters to Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) late last year.
The indictment issued by the Taipei District Prosecutors Office said that Chuang Shun-kui (莊訓貴) allegedly sent a threatening letter containing a pair of sheep’s testicles to Hau in protest at the Taipei Election Commission’s stance on the voting method to be used during the Jan. 12 legislative elections.
Chuang, who mailed the letter to Hau by private courier on last Nov. 29, was angry because the city insisted that voters cast ballots in the legislative polls and on concurrently held referendums using the two-step method, in defiance of a Central Election Commission (CEC) decree that all ballots be picked up at the same time.
The procedural issue became one of the major points of debate in the run-up to the elections and further stoked divisions between supporters of rival political camps led by Hau’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Democratic Progressive Party.
In the letter, Chuang blasted Hau for balking at the CEC’s decision and accused Hau of “trampling on the civil rights of Taiwan’s people” by advocating the “two-step” voting method. At the end of the letter, he signed the name of a civic rights group that he had coined.
Chuang later confessed to the act and was indicted.
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