Agency of Corrections Director Wu Hsien-chang (吳憲璋) yesterday tendered his resignation, saying he wanted to take responsibility for the recent corruption scandal in the nation’s prison system, in which a number of wardens and officials have been detained for questioning on suspicion of receiving bribes in exchange for granting special privileges to inmates.
“The corruption scandal has seriously damaged the Ministry of Justice’s public image. It is difficult to absolve oneself of the blame,” Wu said.
As director of the agency, which is part of the Ministry of Justice, Wu is in charge of the nation’s prison system, wardens and prison officers, and the management of correctional facilities.
However, his resignation was later yesterday rejected by Minister of Justice Luo Ying-shay (羅瑩雪), who said the ministry’s priority is to improve discipline in the corrections system and that she had asked Wu to stay in the job to carry out the needed reforms.
Luo then instructed Wu to convene all wardens and head officials of correctional facilities for a meeting on Wednesday next week, which the justice minister will personally preside over.
The prison corruption scandal sparked raids and seizure of evidence by prosecutors and investigation units at 39 locations on Wednesday, including Taipei Prison, Taichung Prison and Green Island Prison, resulting in 19 suspects being taken into custody for questioning.
After questioning the suspects, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday detained six suspects, who were being held incommunicado to guard against collusion and destruction of evidence as the judicial probe widened.
The six suspects detained yesterday were Green Island Prison warden Su Ching-chun (蘇清俊), who was a former Taipei Prison deputy warden, Taichung Prison deputy warden Chao Chung-chih (趙崇智), Taipei Prison management section director Chou Ping-jung (周秉榮), his subordinate, Chang Wen-fa (張文發), and alleged gang leader Chi Jung-lin (池泳霖), who allegedly admitted to giving bribes to prison officials.
Also detained was Hu Hsiao-ching (胡曉菁), personal secretary to Gary Wang (王令麟), former chairman of Eastern Multimedia Group, who is serving a prison term at Taipei Prison which started in November last year.
Wang and other well-connected inmates allegedly arranged through family members and associates to disburse cash, vouchers for top hotels and other gifts to wardens and senior officers in exchange for contraband items, extra visiting privileges and other special allowances.
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
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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