The Taiwan High Court yesterday upheld a district court’s ruling that Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Yu Tian (余天) was not guilty of defamation by saying that President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and his family members possess US passports.
The court rejected the prosecutors’ appeal and ruled that Yu was not guilty because the question of whether then-presidential candidate Ma possessed US nationality was a matter of public concern, and Yu’s freedom of speech was protected under the Constitution.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) filed a lawsuit against Yu last August for his remarks during a campaign rally alleging that Ma and his family could flee the country at any time. Yu was charged for defamation with intent to cause Ma to fail in his presidential election bid.
PHOTO: WANG MIN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
The Banciao District Court ruled in March that Yu was not guilty because what he said was based on reasonable doubt and evidence.
“Those remarks, though a bit sensational and exaggerated, referred to things worthy of public discussion,” the Banciao District Court stated.
The prosecutors office appealed the case in the higher court, which rejected the appeal yesterday after a thorough review. The high court’s ruling can be appealed.
In other news, the Nantou District Court on Wednesday convicted DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) and his former aide Yao Sheng-chih (姚昇志) for corruption and accepting bribes. Gao was sentenced to five years and six months in prison.
His former aide was sentenced to two years and four months. Both were stripped of civil duties for two years.
Gao was indicted in October 2007 by Nantou prosecutors for accepting bribes from a businessman in exchange for lobbying for him.
Prosecutors alleged that Yao received NT$2 million (US$60,000) in April from a construction company in exchange for his promise to lobby the National Property Administration (NPA) to help the company win the rights to lease a piece of land belonging to the Taichung City Government.
Gao is alleged to have taken NT$500,000 of the NT$ 2 million.
Prosecutors said Gao summoned NPA Director Kuo Wu-po (郭武博) and other agency officials to attend legislative meetings so he could ask them about renting the land to the company.
Gao yesterday said he would appeal.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY CNA
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
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
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