Authorities have been investigating a spate of rumors and misinformation related to the COVID-19 outbreak, with prosecutors yesterday questioning five people for allegedly disseminating messages claiming that a new virus case involves military personnel at Hsinchu Air Force Base.
An investigation was initiated after verifying with health authorities and base officials that the messages are false, Hsinchu City Police Precinct Chief Teng Hsueh-hsin (鄧學鑫) said.
“The messages began circulating on Wednesday on [messaging app] Line groups and other social media platforms,” Teng said. “Five suspects, including a man surnamed Yu (余), were identified and detained.”
Photo copied by Tsai Chang-sheng, Taipei Times
Police later transferred the five to prosecutors for questioning, he said, adding that they face charges for spreading rumors and misinformation under Article 63 of the Communicable Disease Control Act (傳染病防治法), which carries fines of up to NT$3 million (US$98,674).
In Taipei, Criminal Investigation Bureau officers questioned a teenager, who allegedly spread rumors and misinformation about the virus on social media.
Central Epidemic Command Center staff monitoring social media and online news related to COVID-19 reported the girl’s activity. The junior-high school student became the nation’s youngest person to be investigated for spreading rumors and misinformation about the disease.
“The girl shared a message on video-sharing platform TikTok claiming that ‘hundreds of people in Taiwan have died from the Wuhan virus,’ which was accompanied by pictures,” an official said.
The girl reportedly admitted to producing the message and was quoted as saying that she did it to boost the number of her subscribers.
Police urged parents to check their children’s Internet and social media usage, and warn them against disseminating rumors and misinformation.
In other developments, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau on Thursday detained two men who allegedly said on Facebook that a relative of Taiwan’s 19th confirmed case, who was the nation’s first fatality from COVID-19, was being treated at a hospital in Taichung’s Fongyuan District (豐原).
After verifying with local health authorities that the claim was false, bureau officials said that they identified the two men, who face charges.
Taipei police yesterday also questioned a man surnamed Liu (劉) for allegedly spreading a rumor on Facebook that a woman in her 60s was taken to a hospital in Nangang District (南港) and that “she is reportedly a confirmed case, so everyone please take precautions.”
After verifying that the information was false, police located Liu, who is to face charges for breaching Article 63 of the act.
Taipei on Thursday held urban resilience air raid drills, with residents in one of the exercises’ three “key verification zones” reporting little to no difference compared with previous years, despite government pledges of stricter enforcement. Formerly known as the Wanan exercise, the air raid drills, which concluded yesterday, are now part of the “Urban Resilience Exercise,” which also incorporates the Minan disaster prevention and rescue exercise. In Taipei, the designated key verification zones — where the government said more stringent measures would be enforced — were Songshan (松山), Zhongshan (中山) and Zhongzheng (中正) districts. Air raid sirens sounded at 1:30pm, signaling the
‘NON-RED’: Taiwan and Ireland should work together to foster a values-driven, democratic economic system, leveraging their complementary industries, Lai said President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday expressed hopes for closer ties between Taiwan and Ireland, and that both countries could collaborate to create a values-driven, democracy-centered economic system. He made the remarks while meeting with an Irish cross-party parliamentary delegation visiting Taiwan. The delegation, led by John McGuinness, deputy speaker of the Irish house of representatives, known as the Dail, includes Irish lawmakers Malcolm Byrne, Barry Ward, Ken O’Flynn and Teresa Costello. McGuinness, who chairs the Ireland-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Association, is a friend of Taiwan, and under his leadership, the association’s influence has grown over the past few years, Lai said. Ireland is
The number of people who reported a same-sex spouse on their income tax increased 1.5-fold from 2020 to 2023, while the overall proportion of taxpayers reporting a spouse decreased by 4.4 percent from 2014 to 2023, Ministry of Finance data showed yesterday. The number of people reporting a spouse on their income tax trended upward from 2014 to 2019, the Department of Statistics said. However, the number decreased in 2020 and 2021, likely due to a drop in marriages during the COVID-19 pandemic and the income of some households falling below the taxable threshold, it said. The number of spousal tax filings rebounded
A saleswoman, surnamed Chen (陳), earlier this month was handed an 18-month prison term for embezzling more than 2,000 pairs of shoes while working at a department store in Tainan. The Tainan District Court convicted Chen of embezzlement in a ruling on July 7, sentencing her to prison for illegally profiting NT$7.32 million (US$248,929) at the expense of her employer. Chen was also given the opportunity to reach a financial settlement, but she declined. Chen was responsible for the sales counter of Nike shoes at Tainan’s Shinkong Mitsukoshi Zhongshan branch, where she had been employed since October 2019. She had previously worked
RSS