Participants in an outdoor nudist barbeque party in the mountains of Wulai (烏來) in New Taipei City escaped serious punishment for offenses against public decency, after prosecutors gave them only a one-year “stayed charge.”
Prosecutors said they decided to be lenient because the party organizers had tried to safeguard their privacy and the activity took place in a secluded location.
The leaders of the nudist group, a woman surnamed Chen (陳) and a man surnamed Chu (朱), organized the au naturel barbeque event, which took place in a forest in September last year.
Photo provided by police
The “stayed charge,” handed down earlier this week, means that the charges have been withdrawn, but each participant was fined NT$2,000.
Commenting on the decision, Chen said: “I enjoy the feeling of my clothes-free body being in touch with nature. What is wrong with that?”
Saying society is too conservative, Chen added: “Why do people think that the naked body is something dirty?”
“We are just a group of people who love to embrace freedom outdoors. It is a healthy lifestyle to bare one’s body in nature. We do not engage in wild sex parties; it is not a swinger’s club. I do not understand why people have such biased preconceptions.”
Chen and Chu utilized Facebook to invite fellow devotees of “naturism” to join the party. Male participants paid NT$1,000, while women forked out NT$300 to join the party.
According to a prosecutors’ statement, a total of 10 people — seven men and three women — ranging in age from 36 to 57, attended the event.
They drove by car to a forest in Wulai, then hiked to a place near the upper stream of Tonghou River (桶后溪) to a secluded location to hold the party.
Chen said that the fees were used to pay for the food, barbeque grills, fuel, equipment and other expenses.
She said men were charged more because they usually consume more food than women.
Chu said nudist camps are found in many countries around the world, and the clubs have families as regular members.
“So why do people in Taiwan give us peculiar looks as though something deviant is going on?” she asked.
“After what happened this time, I do not think that nudist clubs have any future in Taiwan,” she said.
According to media reports, someone tipped off the police about the event, and officers conducted an investigation, questioning Chu and other participants and taking photographs to use as evidence.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS