Lawyers and members of civic societies and yesterday filed a case at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office against former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), demanding that the judiciary act immediately to restrict Ma from leaving the nation.
Taiwan Forever Association attorney Huang Di-ying (黃帝穎) cited ongoing legal cases against Ma as reasons for prohibiting him from traveling abroad, including allegations that Ma was involved in the 2013 leaking of judicial investigation information by then-prosecutor-general Huang Shih-ming (黃世銘), allegations that he colluded with Farglory Land Development Co so the firm could make illegal profits over the Taipei Dome project, and allegations of corruption over the increase of Ma’s personal assets and properties during his presidential terms.
Lawyers and members of Taiwan North Society, Taiwan Association of University Professors (TAUP) and Taiwan Society Hakka were also present at the event.
Photo: Chien Li-chung, Taipei Times
They demanded Taipei prosecutors stop “going easy” on Ma.
“We have seen the double standards taken by prosecutors in the j the handling of the cases of former presidents Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma.” Huang said.
“Ma’s conduct was illegal, and the evidence against him is very clear. However, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office has kept stalling and has not summoned Ma for questioning. It has also has not imposed any travel restrictions on him,” Huang added.
“Look at the judiciary’s treatment of Chen Shui-bian. Prosecution procedures began the day Chen finished his presidential term, and travel restrictions were imposed on Chen immediately,” he said.
Huang and other lawyers told reporters that during a public lecture at Soochow University in Taipei on Sept. 27, Ma revealed details of secret negotiations and arrangements prior to his meeting on Nov. 7 last year with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in Singapore, including a tacit agreement to refer to each other as “Mr” rather then by any official government title.
Attorney Cheng Wen-lung (鄭文龍) said the Mainland Affairs Council had already classified the negotiations and arrangements for the Ma-Xi meeting as state secrets, but Ma flaunted the information at a public address.
“This has not only damaged the mutual trust we have with the US government, but has breached the law against leaking of state secrets. Therefore, prosecutors must take up the case and prosecute Ma right away,” Cheng said.
“Ma thinks he is an emperor, talking about state secrets during a lecture. This shows his arrogance and his flagrant disregard for the law. Ma probably had no confidence in the content of his lecture, therefore he resorted to leaking state secrets in order to attract attention,” Cheng added.
TAUP member Chen Li-fu (陳俐甫) said that although Ma has the right to academic freedom, this must be balanced against actions that damage the nation’s security.
“Ma cannot hide under the protection of academic freedom. Prosecutors must prosecute him for leaking state secrets,” Chen Li-fu said.
Ma is scheduled to visit Malaysia to attend the World Chinese Economic Summit later this month.
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