Prosecutor-General Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘) should take political responsibility for the wiretapping scandal involving the Supreme Prosecutors’ Office Special Investigation Division (SID), which has deepened the public’s distrust of the nation’s judicial system, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) said yesterday.
“People placed their faith in the prosecutor-general and the SID, but the [wiretapping scandal] has severely undermined public trust in the judicial system,” Hau said.
“I believe Prosecutor-General Huang has the wisdom to handle the matter properly and will take political responsibility for the incident,” the mayor said.
Hau made the comments on the sidelines of a filial piety awards ceremony in Taipei, in response to reporters’ questions on whether he thought Huang should remain in his position in the face of the snowballing political scandal over the division’s highly contentious wiretapping operations.
Hau said the public should be free of the fear that they are being watched, which is why wiretapping can only be carried out under three preconditions: that the process is legal; that it is a last resort; and that it adheres to the principle of minimizing the scope and damage it may cause.
“However, the [SID] not only carried out wiretapping in a crude manner, but also made false conclusions based on its investigations,” Hau said, adding that any form of abuse of wiretapping power should not be tolerated.
Asked about the Ministry of Justice’s decision to form a task force to look into the allegations of improper wiretapping by the division, Hau said it would be more appropriate for the Control Yuan to take over the investigations into the allegations as well as the alleged use of undue influence by Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平).
“The public will not trust the results of the investigations if they are conducted by another judicial agency,” Hau added.
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:
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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