Kaohsiung city councilors have reported receiving death threats from Chinese claiming to be fans of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜).
Kaohsiung city councilors Huang Jie (黃捷) of the New Power Party, and Kao Min-lin (高閔琳), Chiu Chun-hsien (邱俊憲) and Lin Chih-hung (林智鴻) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) have all reported receiving threats.
Huang said on Facebook on Friday that Chinese netizens have posted abusive messages on her Facebook page and she received a letter earlier in the day marked as being from “Hong Kong, China” to “Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, China.”
Photo: Huang Chia-lin, Taipei Times, from Kao Min-lin’s Facebook timeline
The letter threatened rape and murder because Huang had “made a show of rolling her eyes to gain fame,” she said, adding that it warned her to be careful.
Local media showed Huang rolling her eyes as Han evaded her questions at a council interpellation session last month.
Kao yesterday said she has been subject to verbal abuse from Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Han supporters, as well as Chinese since October last year, when she became spokesperson for then-DPP Kaohsiung mayoral candidate Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁).
Her presentations at council sessions, which exposed Han as an “incompetent administrator fond of big talk” and revealed the shortcomings of his team prompted further criticism from his supporters, Kao said.
In addition to online criticism, she has also received four letters, with the last of them arriving on Friday from Hong Kong, just like ones received by Huang and Chiu, Kao said.
Police said they suspected that the same person mailed all three letters, judging by the stamps and the handwriting.
The Kaohsiung Police Department said it would conduct an analysis on fingerprints taken from the letters.
Huang said that she would not be intimidated and was more afraid that Taiwanese liberties are being eroded by China’s “united front” rhetoric.
The person who sent the letter should be glad that it aligned with Beijing’s agenda, otherwise they might have become the target of a second “Causeway Bay incident,” she said, referring to the detention of Lam Wing-kei (林榮基), former manager of Causeway Bay Books, which sold items critical of the Chinese government.
Kao said that she would not be intimated by threats, which confirm that she is doing an excellent job.
She would continue to work to make Taiwan a better place, Kao added.
Chiu called on Han to urge his supporters to keep calm.
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