Politicians and academics offered mixed views on the controversial prosecution of university professors accused of using false receipts to claim research funds, although most of them said they should have been charged with fraud rather than corruption.
The controversy has snowballed after dozens of professors, associate professors and research staff from universities across the country were indicted on corruption charges for allegedly using false receipts to claim research funds as hundreds of similar cases are being investigated.
Speaking at the legislature yesterday, Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) said the ministry would not interfere with individual cases, but that Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) had laid down the principle for dealing with such cases.
Huang has said that the professors were charged with corruption because they were considered “responsible civil servants” who were given the responsibility to oversee procurement and inspection, Tseng said.
Huang has also said that if the funds were not used to purchase items for personal use, the act would constitute fraud rather than corruption, Tseng added.
Some have argued that professors working for public universities should be charged with corruption and those employed in private universities should be charged with fraud, while others have said that all the professors should be charged with corruption, Tseng said.
Led by Shih Hsin University professor Kan Tien-kuei (甘添貴), a group of academics who specialize in criminal law issued a joint statement yesterday arguing against Huang’s interpretation and said that the professors should not be considered “responsible civil servants” regardless of which university they work for.
Former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said in a press release that charging professors who were not familiar with the law with corruption would “undermine freedom in the academic and research world.”
The real issue should be the rigid reimbursement and audit system for research funds, Tsai said, adding that many politicians and government officials have been charged with corruption for similar practices in recent years and created political divisions.
Tsai urged the judiciary to deal with the cases cautiously and avoid abuse of power.
“If we are talking about the crimes of a few people, that would definitely be a legal discussion. If we are talking about hundreds of university professors who committed the same crime, that could be an issue of system, procedure or legislation,” former premier Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) said.
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
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
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