A reporter and a professor have been indicted on suspicion of taking directives from Chinese officials and disseminating fake opinion polls before the Jan. 13 presidential election.
Finger Media reporter and manager Lin Hsien-yuan and Su Yun-hua (蘇雲華), a retired associate professor from a university in Taichung, were charged with contravening the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選舉罷免法) and the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法), the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office said in the indictment issued on Thursday.
Lin asked Su to accompany him on a funded sightseeing trip to Xiamen, China, from April 20 to 23 last year at the invitation of the Fujian Daily, which is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Fujian Provincial Committee, prosecutors found.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
After returning to Taiwan, Lin was instructed to establish a media company in Taichung and produce and publish fake poll results online in a bid to influence public opinion in the run-up to the presidential election, prosecutors said.
Lin tasked Su with the job of fabricating 10 polls for which Su received NT$1.5 million (US$47,835), prosecutors found.
In October last year, Su fabricated eight surveys and Lin’s media company published the results.
One poll produced by Su said the support rating for the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential ticket was 33.05 percent, ahead of the Democratic Progressive Party’s 32.19 percent and the Taiwan People’s Party’s 18.38 percent.
Lin received more than 130,000 yuan (US$18,259) in funding from his contacts in China and discussed poll presentation methods with them, prosecutors said.
While the fake polls were being produced, Lin also allegedly exchanged texts with a man named Chen Binhua (陳斌華), who has the same name as the spokesman for China’s Taiwan Affairs Office.
However, prosecutors said they were unable to authenticate his identity.
Lin and Su were arrested and detained after prosecutors searched their workplaces and homes on Dec. 21 last year. Evidence, such as smartphones, computers and materials related to the polls, was seized.
The Taichung District Court on Thursday allowed Lin and Su to be released on bail of NT$350,000 and NT$250,000 respectively.
However, they are banned from changing their place of residence and leaving the country, prosecutors said.
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