People should be on the alert for election bribery attempts with three days until the nine-in-one elections, the National Police Administration (NPA) said yesterday, adding that any suspected incidents should be reported to the authorities to keep the elections clean.
As of Tuesday, information about 1,333 individuals had been handed to prosecutors regarding alleged election bribery, information on 113 had been passed on regarding election-related violence and 593 for obstruction of electoral affairs, the NPA said.
The three days leading up to election day on Saturday would be the peak for vote-buying attempts and police are monitoring “hot spots” of potential illegal activity, it said.
Photo: CNA
Separately, the Taiwan High Prosecutors’ Office ordered that personnel be stationed at police precincts to facilitate processes to combat vote-buying.
As of Tuesday, prosecutors’ offices had received 4,151 reports of election-related illegalities, of which 2,913 involved alleged vote buying, the High Prosecutors’ Office said.
Ninety-eight people had been detained and 62 others were in custody, it said, adding that it had released 85 people on bail and indicted 118.
It has postponed prosecution of 77 people in such cases, it said.
If people witness suspected vote-buying activity, they should report the incident using the hotline for the High Prosecutors’ Office — 0800-024-099, it said.
Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) told lawmakers at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee yesterday that his ministry had 3,367 “ta” cases.
A “ta” case is an unofficial categorization used when prosecutors are sure there is criminal activity, but corpus delicti, the principle that a crime must be proved to have occurred before a person can be convicted, cannot be established.
Hopefully the elections would be fair, Tsai said, adding that the Ministry of Justice would strictly observe administrative neutrality.
The prosecutor-general has identified areas where vote-buying is rampant, he said, adding that the ministry has dispatched personnel to police precincts and has asked prosecutors from second appellate courts to assist them.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator William Tseng (曾銘宗) asked if the ministry is looking into allegations that former minister of transportation and communications Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍), the Democratic Progressive Party’s candidate for New Taipei City mayor, was engaged in vote-buying.
Efforts to eradicate vote-buying should be applied equally, Tseng said.
Tsai said that the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office is investigating the allegations against Lin and if they warrant charges, the issue would be handled according to the law.
However, the ministry cannot make a ruling based on circumstantial evidence, he said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS