Authorities yesterday arrested a man suspected of posting on social media an image of prosecutors allegedly involved in the Core Pacific City (京華城) corruption case with the words “a life for a life.”
Taipei police and Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau (MJIB) officers arrested a man surnamed Tai (戴), 39, who lives in New Taipei City’s Sijhih District (汐止), media reports said, adding that authorities were also seeking another suspect.
On Wednesday a user nicknamed “Mayday1990,” under the account “rosetree881,” posted to the social media platform Threads a composite image of 11 Taipei prosecutors.
Photo: screen grab from Threads
The image included red streaks reminiscent of blood spatter over the faces of the prosecutors, who were identified by their names. It contained the message: “Remember their names and faces,” while the user wrote below it: “A life for a life.”
Comments on the post said that the prosecutors were involved in the Core Pacific City case, which has ensnared former Taipei mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) founder Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), as well as former Taipei deputy mayor Pong Cheng-sheng (彭振聲), other city officials and executives of the Core Pacific Group (威京集團).
TPP legislators over the past few days have called on the Ministry of Justice and judicial officials to make public an alleged recording of a prosecutor questioning several main suspects in the case.
On Tuesday morning, while Pong was waiting for his hearing to begin at the Taipei District Court, he received a call from his family saying that his wife, Hsieh Hsia-chiao (謝夏蕎), had died that morning after falling from a building in Kaohsiung.
After the incident, posts began appearing online, reportedly from TPP supporters, accusing Taipei prosecutors of unfairly targeting Pong, Ko and city officials in the probe, MJIB investigators said.
Ko has been in detention since last year.
Some of the posts said Taipei prosecutors should be held responsible for the death of Pong’s wife, which led to more posts, some of which were death threats or were threatening violence against prosecutors, investigators said.
Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) urged people to stop targeting officials in the investigation.
Taiwan’s freedom of expression has its limits, and the government has no tolerance for those who advocate violence or threaten the lives of judicial officials, she said.
“We must protect the personal safety of prosecutors and judges, to ensure judicial independence and impartiality during investigations and prosecutions,” she said.
On Facebook, an account posted photographs and names of three Taipei District Court judges, alleging that they were involved in the corruption probe.
“Posting photos of court judges. I do not know if this constitutes intimidation?” read the post, tagged with the phrase “remember their names and faces,” which was used in the Threads post.
The Ministry of Justice condemned the posts.
“Freedom of expression is protected by the Constitution, but it is not above the law. People circulating hateful messages, death threats and attacks with baseless accusations have endangered all judicial officials and harmed trust in the justice system,” the ministry said in a statement.
“We urge people to return to reasonable public debate, and to respect the rule of law and values of a democratic society,” it added.
It is important to guarantee the safety of prosecutors, so that they can do their jobs, the ministry said.
“Prosecutors have a duty to investigate and prosecute criminal cases, and we must not tolerate threats of violence, and will crack down on such illegal conduct, as it is our duty to defend justice,” it said.
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