When a recall campaign targeting the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislators was launched, something rather disturbing happened.
According to reports, Hualien County Government officials visited several people to verify their signatures. Local authorities allegedly used routine or harmless reasons as an excuse to enter people’s house for investigation.
The KMT launched its own recall campaigns, targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers, and began to collect signatures. It has been found that some of the KMT-headed counties and cities have allegedly been mobilizing municipal machinery.
In Keelung, the director of the Department of Civil Affairs used the household registration system to obtain people’s personal information, which entails recall petition forgery. The KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) have been saying that the central government is mobilizing state machinery to carry out political persecution. However, as the judicial investigation proceeds, officials of the KMT’s local chapters have been caught red-handed, and have been detained as part of the ongoing investigation into their alleged crimes.
It seems that the civil affairs director was playing with the law, failing to make a clear distinction between party and government while infringing on personal privacy and forging recall documents. Such acts are proof of the lengths the KMT is willing to go to to achieve its goals.
Indigenous DPP Legislator Saidhai Tahovecahe has also recently been made aware that his parents, who had passed away years ago, were on the KMT’s list of signatures.
In the past, the KMT controlled the state machinery, oppressed freedom of speech and contravened human rights during the White Terror era. Although the party has lost power, it still heads most of the local governments in Taiwan. Today, it has been revealed that KMT officials mobilized municipal machinery to carry out terrible political persecution.
If Taiwan wants to enjoy true freedom and democracy, apart from carrying out recall campaigns against KMT lawmakers, it is also necessary to convince Taiwanese to change the local political map, so the public can rid itself of the shadow of the White Terror era once and for all.
Chen Chi-nung is principal of Shuili Junior-High School in Nantou County.
Translated by Eddy Chang
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