DPP lawmakers yesterday demonstrated their support for Vice President Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), who is embroiled in a scandal after a report in a Chinese-language magazine said that she had begun circulating a rumor to tarnish the reputation of the president.
"We merely want to display our support to the vice president. We believe she would never do a thing like that to hurt the president," said Chou Ching-yu (
During the afternoon meeting with 18 DPP legislators at the Taipei Guest House, Lu once again claimed her innocence concerning the allegations made by the Journalist magazine (新新聞週報) last Thursday that she was the source of a rumor about President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) having an affair with his translator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴).
"The vice president told us [the lawmakers in attendance] she had never made a phone call to the Journalist to say Chen was having an extramarital relationship. She [Lu] said if she had, she would resign for what she had said," DPP lawmaker Hsu Tien-tsai (
"We told the vice president not to be overly bothered by such absurd allegations, but meanwhile, we all consider Lu's exoneration from this baseless accusation to be a pressing issue," Hsu said.
DPP lawmaker Chou Ya-shu (
Yet at the same time, Chou said, they also provided the vice president with possible alternatives before the case might be brought to the court.
Chou said they suggested to Lu to request that the Journalist make corrections regarding its previous ungrounded reports, in accordance with the Article 51 of the Publishing Law (出版法), which states that if publishing companies have reported false information, individuals affected are entitled to request the publishing house make corrections.
If the Journalist refused to comply with the demand, Lu should ask the magazine to make public the cassette, on which the Journalist claimed to have taped the tip-off phone conversation between the vice president and a supervisor of the magazine, Chou said.
Lu said she would take all suggestions into consideration after consulting with her lawyers, Chou said.
"We are convinced that the vice president is wise enough to choose the best measure to tackle the issue. We hope the case can be brought to an end as soon as possible because we can't afford to waste more time on relentless power games like this. It is about time for us to shift focus onto more important national affairs, such as financial and cross-strait issues," she added.
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