Kaohsiung City Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) yesterday announced he intended to file a lawsuit against one of the nation's leading Chinese-language newspapers, after the daily made allegations about Hsieh's possible involvement in a high-profile bribery scandal involving Kaohsiung City Council's speaker and vice speaker and the Yu Huang Temple (玉皇宮).
The United Daily News questioned the Kaohsiung District Prosecutors' Office's failure to investigate Hsieh's possible connection to the scandal in its editorial yesterday, with the headline, "Does the investigation stop at Frank Hsieh's door?"
"There seems to be a line in front of Hsieh's feet. All of the investigations stop in front of the line, and whether Hsieh is involved in the cases is not even investigated," the editorial said.
Hsieh was extremely upset about the contents of the editorial, saying that the newspaper had damaged his reputation without providing any evidence.
Hsieh also demanded NT$1 billion compensation from the newspaper.
"The prosecutors' office didn't fail to investigate the case. The office just failed to find the result the daily wants to see," Hsieh said in yesterday's city council meeting.
The mayor said that his offices at the city government has been searched by prosecutors, but that he had never mentioned the search as he respects the independence of the judiciary.
The daily's editorial also said: "If Hsieh wasn't involved in the bribery scandal, the suspected deep involvement of the city government's Civil Affairs Bureau director Wang Wen-cheng (王文正), a close aide of Hsieh, would make no sense."
Chou Chang-chin (
"Wang Wen-cheng was indeed seriously involved in the scandal, but we didn't find any evidence related to Hsieh," Chou said.
Chou added that the Yu Huang Temple affair is under investigation and so he is not allowed to provide any information related to the case.
Prosecutors discovered in January that Hsieh had received a sum of NT$2.8 million from Hsu Wen-liang (許文良), the chief of the temple.
Prosecutors suspect the money was a payment in exchange for Hsieh's approval of the illegal construction of part of the temple.
In response to Hsieh's announcement, the United Daily News released a statement yesterday afternoon, saying that "the two bribery scandals of the Kaohsiung City Council speaker and vice speaker and Yu Huang Temple are two issues which should be criticized by the public."
"The United Daily News' comments on the issue and questioning about the two cases didn't exceed the bounds of our responsibility as a social force," the statement said.
"We hope that politicians can all respect the social role of the media and protect the media's social responsibilities," the statement said.
However, Lu Shih-xiang (盧世祥), founder of the Foundation for the Advancement of Media Excellence (新聞公害防治基金會) and a retired editor in chief of the Economic Daily News, commented that the daily's editorial was irresponsible.
"Reality should be the foundation of news comments. Writing news comments not based on reality is unfair to whomever is commented on, and would only waste the readers' time," Lu said.
Three of Hsieh's attorneys are scheduled to hold a press conference today after they have officially filed the lawsuit.
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