The Taiwan Medical Association on Tuesday slammed a controversial former government official’s remarks that “[sexual assault] is legal if it is not caught,” made in reference to the alleged rape of a writer, surnamed Lin (林).
Kuo Kuan-ying’s (郭冠英) comments are absurd and “tantamount to throwing salt on the wounds of rape victims and their families,” the association said.
Cram-school teacher Chen Kuo-hsing (陳國星) has been accused of raping Lin when she was his student, an incident that might have contributed to her suicide last month.
Kuo on Monday told Sanlih E-Television that “[sexual assault] is legal if they did not catch it,” and if Chen broke any laws, Lin’s parents should have pressed charges.
Since Lin’s family did not press charges, the whole affair should be considered legal, he said.
Kuo, a former Toronto-based Government Information Service employee, was fired in 2009 after writing several online articles disparaging ethnic Taiwanese, including calling them taibazi (台巴子), meaning “Taiwanese rednecks,” and wokou (倭寇), or “Japanese pirates.”
He also styled himself a “high-class Mainlander” and characterized the imposition of martial law during the White Terror era as a “benevolent act.”
“Those comments are unlawful, immoral and criminal. They are an absurd attempt at rationalization, contemptuous of this democratic society’s principles of freedom, justice and the rule of law, and tantamount to throwing salt on the wounds of rape victims and their families by re-traumatizing them. This association expresses its strongest possible opposition and condemnation,” the group said in a statement.
Proportionally fewer perpetrators of sexual assault are prosecuted for their crimes, because many victims and their families chose silence or settlement, the association said.
Victims of sexual assault often suffer from severe post-traumatic stress disorders and other lasting psychological wounds, and they need counseling and support from friends and family to heal, it said.
“The public should support women’s rights, the right sexual autonomy and sex education,” the association said.
Kuo on Monday also wrote on Facebook that Chen is a “real gentleman.”
“He is a patriot, so he is being ganged up on by pro-independence legislators and media,” Kuo wrote.
“He promoted Chinese culture and big bucks; respect,” he wrote.
“Pro-independence Japanese hate him so much because he loved a beautiful daughter of Tainan and they do not have many pretty ones down there; a rare beautiful woman fell in love with a handsome rich Taipei person and wrote a novel about it? The pro-independence Japanese cannot take it,” he said.
“Are daughters of Tainan less violable?... A death of a daughter of Tainan made all of Taiwan sad? I am not sad,” he said.
A group of Tainan-based lawmakers and city councilors on Monday held a news conference to condemn Kuo’s remarks.
“Kuo’s chauvinism has smothered his conscience and reason,” Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ding-yu (王定宇) said.
DPP Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said Taiwan lacks regulations against hate speech, which allows people like Kuo to make a hobby of provoking people and involve complex political issues, such as independence or unification, into simple issues of crime or corruption.
“Lin’s tragic death greatly affected the public and Kuo’s comments are intolerable,” DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
DPP Councilor Tsai Wang-chuan (蔡旺詮) said he was “enraged and nauseated” by Kuo’s comments.
In response, Kuo said that his remarks calling Chen a “real gentleman” were a quote from another cram school teacher, Liu Yi (劉毅).
Lawmakers, the media and police are relying on Lin’s reportedly autobiographical novel, which should not be treated as evidence, Kuo said.
Additional reporting by Wu Chun-feng and Tung Chen-kuo
‘CORNERED ENEMY’: China’s rise is threatening peace and stability, and the US would aim to restrict it with help from allies in the Asia-Pacific, Soong Hseik-wen said A draft bill on protecting Taiwan from invasion is likely to be passed by the US Congress, but it remains to be seen how US President Joe Biden’s administration would implement the act if it is passed, Taiwanese academics said on Sunday. US Senator Rick Scott and US Representative Guy Reschenthaler on Thursday reintroduced the proposed Taiwan Invasion Prevention Act, which was shelved in September last year due to the impending US presidential election. Arthur Ding (丁樹範), a professor at National Chengchi University’s College of International Affairs, and Soong Hseik-wen (宋學文), a professor at National Chung Cheng University’s Graduate Institute
OVERHAUL NEEDED: The government should improve its agricultural processing capabilities and expand to new markets to limit its reliance on China, an expert said China’s ban on Taiwanese pineapples was “unsurprising,” and Taiwan should have years ago altered its produce export strategies and target customers, experts said. China on Friday abruptly suspended imports of pineapples from Taiwan, saying that it had on multiple occasions discovered “harmful biological entities” on the fruit. Calling it an “unfriendly” move, the Council of Agriculture (COA) said that 99.79 percent of the pineapples sent to China since last year have met China’s import standards. Chiao Chun (焦鈞), the author of Fruits and Politics — A Recollection of Cross-strait Agricultural Interaction Over the Past Decade (水果政治學:兩岸農業交流十年回顧與展望), said that China’s announcement is clearly targeting
‘NOT COLD ENOUGH’: Schools are disregarding Premier Su Tseng-chang’s instruction that students may wear out-of-uniform clothing to stay warm, an association said An investigative report revealed that 72.5 percent of the nation’s senior-high schools and 95.6 percent of junior-high schools punish students for wearing unapproved winter clothes in contravention of educational guidelines, lawmakers and student rights advocates said yesterday. Speaking at a news conference at the Legislative Yuan, the Taiwan Youth Association for Democracy said there is an endemic disregard for the Ministry of Education’s regulations and that private schools are more likely to contravene ministry rules. The report is a compilation of 2,856 student reports about dress code reinforcement at 425 high schools and vocational high schools, the association said. Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌)
DISSATISFACTION? If the referendums collect more than 700,000 signatures each, they would have gotten the most signatures in the shortest time, the party said The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) two referendum petitions — one on banning the importation of pork with traces of ractopamine and the other on holding referendums on the same day as national elections — had as of Thursday gathered 691,398 and 674,497 signatures respectively, the party said yesterday. If the petitions collect more than 700,000 signatures apiece, they would have garnered the most signatures in the shortest time since the Referendum Act (公民投票法) was amended in 2017, party officials said. The KMT proposed the “anti-ractopamine pork” or “food safety” referendum just days after President Tsai Ing-wen’s (蔡英文) announcement on Aug. 28 last