The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday said it is the “biggest victim” of Chinese intervention in Taiwanese politics, as it urged the public not to share a version of its promotional video that has been altered.
The original theme of the video was “Guard Congress, Protect Taiwan,” DPP spokesperson Lee Yen-jong (李晏榕) told a news conference in Taipei, calling on supporters to vote for the party to help it retain its legislative majority.
The video, released last week, had 200,000 viewers in just one day and thousands of shares, she said.
Photo: Chen Yu-fu, Taipei Times
However, the party recently received notice about an altered version, which has President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) saying: “Our future path is clear — we will continue to support the ‘one country, two systems’ option,” Lee said.
In the original version, Tsai, the DPP’s candidate, said: “Our future path is clear — we will say no to the ‘one country, two systems’ option.”
The DPP has traced the altered video to a person in Hangzhou, China, but that person is likely not the source, as their Facebook page shows few friends, Lee said.
A professional team seems to have been behind the doctored version, as sound clips from Tsai’s speeches were spliced into the video, Lee said.
The party is gathering evidence and is not ruling out filing charges against the person or people behind the doctored video, she said.
The changes contravened the video’s copyright, and could be considered forgery and slander, as defined by the Criminal Code, she said, adding that continuing to share the video in Taiwan would constitute a breach of the nation’s laws.
The DPP condemns the behavior and calls on the public to “support the DPP if they want to keep their current lifestyle,” Lee said.
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