A top official at the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) is under investigation by the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) for allegedly circulating misinformation.
MJIB Kaohsiung office deputy director Yan Cheng-yi (顏正義) and several other people last week reportedly disseminated a social media post that contained misinformation about Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌).
CIB officials said Yan is under investigation for breaches of the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) and has been summoned for questioning.
Yan earlier this month also circulated a post criticizing President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and the government about the legalization of same-sex marriage, the probe found.
Denouncing Tsai and the government for promoting same-sex marriage, Yan said it would “bring AIDS to Taiwan and create big business opportunities for some companies.”
He insinuated that “85 percent of people afflicted with AIDS are gay men, and Taiwan’s national health insurance would have to pay for all their medical treatment, so it is a big profit generator for a biotech company controlled by Tsai.”
In the second post, Yan allegedly circulated a video showing Su putting down a pen in a “disdainful manner” after signing a guest book at what it claimed was the funeral of railway police officer Lee Cheng-han (李承翰), who was stabbed to death on July 3 by a passenger.
It was accompanied by a message that said: “This is the funeral of a fallen officer. If you did not want to be there, you did not have to go. Why did you display such arrogance, throwing the pen in anger?”
The video contained misleading information to smear the premier, as the date and location were transplanted from another event: Su was attending a funeral in Pingtung County for a friend’s mother, the investigation found.
Su’s office said that throwing a pen after signing one’s name at a funeral was a custom in his hometown.
The gesture is meant to avert bad luck and other unfortunate events, such as the death of a loved one, it said.
Yan was instrumental in disseminating the video through Line and other social media networks, but it had originated from a 47-year-old software engineer surnamed Chan (詹), who has said he is a supporter of Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), the investigation found.
Veteran media figure and commentator Wang Ruei-de (王瑞德) said the judiciary must come down hard on Yan because “the MJIB is the nation’s top judicial investigation unit, and it is supposed to be in charge of cracking down on false reports.”
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS