Taipei City police yesterday said they would summon suspects over a violent disturbance outside the legislature on April 19 by protesters against pension reform, after charges were filed against National Civil Servant Association director Harry Lee (李來希) and three other people who allegedly assaulted lawmakers and public officials.
The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday charged Lee with coercion and inciting others to commit an offense.
Lee, National Federation of Teachers’ Unions director-general Huang Yao-nan (黃耀南) and Taipei Metro Union executive member Wang Yu-wen (王裕文) are leading civil servants and other government sector employees in a series of protests against pension reform.
Huang and Wang were this week summoned by police in a group of 10 suspects, who were questioned over their roles in the disturbance, when lawmakers and city and county leaders — mostly members of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — were allegedly attacked by protesters.
Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) sustained two broken ribs in the alleged attack.
Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was allegedly punched and Deputy Mayor Charles Lin (林欽榮) was allegedly pushed onto a barbed wire fence, sustaining cuts to his hand.
DPP Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) said he was hit in the face with a plastic bottle.
New Power Party Legislator Hsu Yung-ming (徐永明) had water splashed on him, while he and Changhua County Commissioner Wei Ming-ku’s (魏明谷) suits were ripped.
Most of the protesters against pension reform are retired or current civil servants, government sector employees or public school teachers.
Some protesters are reportedly members of the Chinese Unification Promotion Party, which allegedly receives financial backing from Beijing.
Police officials have identified retired military personnel Peng Ke-ying (彭克英) as a suspect in Cheng’s case.
Peng, along with two other retired military personnel, have been charged for their suspected roles in the attack.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,