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.
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
WAITING GAME: The US has so far only offered a ‘best rate tariff,’ which officials assume is about 15 percent, the same as Japan, a person familiar with the matter said Taiwan and the US have completed “technical consultations” regarding tariffs and a finalized rate is expected to be released soon, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference yesterday, as a 90-day pause on US President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs is set to expire today. The two countries have reached a “certain degree of consensus” on issues such as tariffs, nontariff trade barriers, trade facilitation, supply chain resilience and economic security, Lee said. They also discussed opportunities for cooperation, investment and procurement, she said. A joint statement is still being negotiated and would be released once the US government has made
SOUTH CHINA SEA? The Philippine president spoke of adding more classrooms and power plants, while skipping tensions with China over disputed areas Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday blasted “useless and crumbling” flood control projects in a state of the nation address that focused on domestic issues after a months-long feud with his vice president. Addressing a joint session of congress after days of rain that left at least 31 dead, Marcos repeated his recent warning that the nation faced a climate change-driven “new normal,” while pledging to investigate publicly funded projects that had failed. “Let’s not pretend, the people know that these projects can breed corruption. Kickbacks ... for the boys,” he said, citing houses that were “swept away” by the floods. “Someone has
‘CRUDE’: The potential countermeasure is in response to South Africa renaming Taiwan’s representative offices and the insistence that it move out of Pretoria Taiwan is considering banning exports of semiconductors to South Africa after the latter unilaterally downgraded and changed the names of Taiwan’s two representative offices, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday. On Monday last week, the South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation unilaterally released a statement saying that, as of April 1, the Taipei Liaison Offices in Pretoria and Cape Town had been renamed the “Taipei Commercial Office in Johannesburg” and the “Taipei Commercial Office in Cape Town.” Citing UN General Assembly Resolution 2758, it said that South Africa “recognizes the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the sole
RSS