Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislative candidate Lin Yu-fang (林郁方) at a campaign rally on Friday night asked voters not to let his New Power Party counterpart Freddy Lim (林昶佐), who has “hair that is longer than a woman’s and is mentally abnormal,” into the legislature. Lin yesterday said Lim’s long hair was not why he called him mentally abnormal.
Lin said the statement about Lim’s long hair was “a description of Lim’s current state without judgement.”
“I find both short and long hair nice-looking. Lim should show his long hair openly; there is no need to hide it,” he added.
“The mentally abnormal part was referring to Lim’s criticism of a prosecutor who pressed charges against and called for a heavy sentence be imposed on Justin Lee (李宗瑞), who sexually assaulted 34 women, calling the prosecutor ‘childish and perverted,’” Lin said.
Lee was convicted of sexual assaults and offenses related to privacy for filming sexual acts with women without their consent. Lim in 2012, when Lee was first charged, criticized a prosecutor who called Lee “a pervert, childish and in need of treatment” for the prosecutor’s conflation of personal feelings and duties.
“The prosecutors’ job is to investigate in accordance with the law and evidence, not for you to vent your personal feelings,” Lim wrote on Facebook at the time, adding that such prosecutors “are themselves the childish perverts who need to go back to school in a society of rule of law.”
Lin on Friday said that people should not let Lim, who took part in the occupation of the Legislative Yuan during the Sunflower movement, but has now “suited up, try to swagger into the Legislative Yuan.”
Lim yesterday said he has always been “unwilling to respond” to the KMT’s accusations, adding that Lin’s remarks on Friday “were completely discriminatory.” Lin was, “with his own perspective, discriminating against someone who is different from him,” Lim said.
Chinese dissident Wang Dan (王丹) yesterday lamented the “degeneration of a 100-year-old party,” referring to the KMT.
The KMT “was a grand party that once shone in history,” Wang said. “Even when it is losing, it should face it with dignity in order to win people’s respect.”
“However, anti-civilization, anti-intellectual and anti-human comments not only have nothing good to offer the party’s image, but only show that it has given up on the future, so it could say whatever it wants,” he said.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
A tropical disturbance off the southeastern coast of the Philippines might become the first typhoon of the western Pacific typhoon season, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The system lacks a visible center and how it would develop is only likely to become clear on Sunday or Monday, the CWA said, adding that it was not yet possible to forecast the potential typhoon's effect on Taiwan. The American Meteorological Society defines a tropical disturbance as a system made up of showers and thunderstorms that lasts for at least 24 hours and does not have closed wind circulation.
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
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