The Taipei City Department of Education yesterday revoked the work contract of a male teacher one week after he was detained by prosecutors for allegedly having unprotected sex with men he met online while reportedly concealing that he had HIV.
The teacher, surnamed Feng (馮), was dismissed by the elementary school he worked at last week and has been on unpaid leave since September, when an anonymous informant told the school that he has HIV.
The department’s deputy commissioner, Tseng Tsan-chin (曾燦金), said the department’s education evaluation committee decided that the teacher has harmed the reputation of all teachers and violated the rights of the students, despite the allegations still being under investigation.
The department revoked Feng’s work contract yesterday and will put him on a list of “ineligible teachers,” which means that no school is allowed to hire him, Tseng said.
“The department has been in contact with prosecutors about the teacher’s alleged actions. Although the probe is ongoing, we decided to take administrative action immediately to prevent damaging the reputation of the city’s schools or infringing on the rights of the students,” he said.
Earlier last week, the Taipei City Police Department allegedly seized various types of drugs in a raid conducted on Feng’s home and said it discovered that he had unprotected sex with at least five men he met on gay Web sites.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office detained Feng over the allegations and has launched a probe into Feng’s sexual relations. Prosecutors said there could be more than 100 people who had sex with Feng without knowing he had HIV.
Tseng yesterday said that an initial probe found no “victims” at the school, but that it would continue to investigate the matter. It added that it has set up counseling services for students and parents over the incident, he said.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
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