Hsu Shang-hsien (徐尚賢), the leader of a recall vote campaign organization targeting two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers in Kaohsiung, has been detained following questioning over alleged forgery and contraventions of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
The Kaohsiung District Court on Saturday approved local prosecutors’ request to detain Hsu and hold him incommunicado for two months. The court cited concerns that he could tamper with evidence or collude with other people involved in the case.
According to court documents released yesterday, Hsu admitted that many of the signatures on his organization’s recall petition documents were not provided by actual supporters, but were written by himself or campaign volunteers.
Photo: CNA
Although Hsu denied illegally collecting and using personal data, the court said digital evidence on two confiscated phones and witness testimony pointed to “suspected serious illegality.”
The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office said that Hsu deleted files and chat records related to the recall vote campaign and advised others, including a man named Chu Lei (朱磊) and a woman surnamed Huang (黃), on how to respond to judicial inquiries.
Huang was released without bail after being questioned on Friday and Chu was released on bail of NT$150,000 early on Saturday, prosecutors said.
The court said that the facts remain unclear and that the risk of collusion with others who have not yet been questioned justified Hsu’s pretrial detention.
Hsu ran the campaign organization “Double Strike Petition Headquarters,” which coordinated signature collections for campaigns against DPP lawmakers Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) and Huang Jie (黃捷), both of whom represent Kaohsiung electoral districts in the legislature.
The case is one of several ongoing investigations into alleged illegality in recall vote campaigns targeting DPP lawmakers, which have led opposition politicians to accuse the ruling party of using the judiciary to “persecute” its political opponents.
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) protested outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last week and is urging Taiwanese to assemble in front of the Presidential Office Building on Saturday.
The DPP has denied the allegation and accused the KMT of threatening Taiwan’s social stability and democracy.
Last week, separate investigations by Taipei and New Taipei City prosecutors resulted in raids and the arrests of activists who had allegedly forged signatures and contravened data protection laws in their recall campaigns against DPP lawmakers.
According to the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), a public vote could be triggered if campaigners are able to collect signatures from 1 percent of district voters in the first round and 10 percent in the second.
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