Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Su Jun-pin (蘇俊賓) said yesterday that an incident involving a GIO official who allegedly wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese should not be blown out of proportion.
Su made the remarks after being asked by reporters whether the government should apologize for the alleged indiscretion by Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英), the acting director of the information division at Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers allege that Kuo wrote articles defaming Taiwan and Taiwanese in articles penned under the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽).
The GIO transferred Kuo back to Taiwan and referred him to the Judicial Yuan’s Commission on the Disciplinary Sanctions of Functionaries for investigation.
‘APPROPRIATE’
Su yesterday said the GIO’s handling of the Kuo incident was “appropriate,” as the GIO could not determine by itself whether Fan was Kuo’s pen name given the discrepancies between the GIO’s findings and Kuo’s side of story.
The GIO has come under criticism for its handling of the case.
Back in 2002, then-Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) offered an apology over a slip of the tongue by Wu Meng-teh (吳孟德), then director of the Public Works Bureau, for saying that the flooding that had hit the city that summer was the result of “there [being] too many Mainlanders.”
Wu subsequently stepped down to take responsibility.
Citing Wu’s case, reporters yesterday asked Su whether the government would take more actions to quell the uproar caused by the Kuo incident.
Su said that Kuo’s position was protected by laws regulating civil servants.
“[The punishment given to] Kuo could have been more severe if Kuo had been a politically appointed official or my personal secretary [rather than a civil servant],” Su said, adding that “if I offered an apology [for the incident] now, it would be tantamount to a conviction for Kuo.”
DPP
Su said that most of the articles by Fan were written between 2005 and 2007, when the DPP was in power.
“I have been reluctant to mention the fact that the articles were written during the DPP government. As I am now GIO minister, I don’t want to implicate [the former DPP government] in the Kuo affair, but the case should not be blown out of proportion,” Su said.
At a separate setting yesterday, Minister of Foreign Affairs Francisco Ou (歐鴻鍊) said he had instructed all ministry personnel stationed abroad to be strictly mindful of their conduct and speech while representing the country and that he personally believed Kuo had “entirely stepped out of bounds.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY JENNY W. HSU
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
A 79-year-old woman died today after being struck by a train at a level crossing in Taoyuan, police said. The woman, identified by her surname Wang (王), crossed the tracks even though the barriers were down in Jhongli District’s (中壢) Neili (內壢) area, the Taoyuan Branch of the Railway Police Bureau said. Surveillance footage showed that the railway barriers were lowered when Wang entered the crossing, but why she ventured onto the track remains under investigation, the police said. Police said they received a report of an incident at 6:41am involving local train No. 2133 that was heading from Keelung to Chiayi City. Investigators
The Keelung District Prosecutors’ Office today requested that a court detain three individuals, including Keelung Department of Civil Affairs Director Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns. Chang is suspected of accessing a household registration system to assist with recall campaigns targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Chang (張之豪), prosecutors said. Prosecutors yesterday directed investigators to search six locations, including the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Keelung office and the residences of several recall campaign leaders. The recall campaign leaders, including Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), Yu Cheng-i (游正義) and Hsu Shao-yeh
COVID-19 infections have climbed for three consecutive weeks and are likely to reach another peak between next month and June, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Weekly hospital visits for the disease increased by 19 percent from the previous week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. From Tuesday last week to yesterday, 21 cases of severe COVID-19 and seven deaths were confirmed, and from Sept. 1 last year to yesterday, there were 600 cases and 129 deaths, he said. From Oct. 1 last year to yesterday, 95.9 percent of the severe cases and 96.7 percent of the deaths
RSS