People First Party (PFP) Chairman James Soong (
"We are asking Chen Shui-bian to clear the defamation and distortion of the truth done to [Soong] in a press conference and to apologize," said Soong's lawyer Li Ful-dien (
Going through Li and PFP spokesman Hsieh Kung-pin (謝公秉), Soong filed a civil suit against Chen for defamation.
PHOTO:CNA
TOKEN COMPENSATION
The PFP leader is asking for just NT$1 in damages in addition to requiring Chen to run half-page ads in major papers with an apology.
In a TV interview May 8, Chen said that he had received information that Soong met with Taiwan Affairs Office director Chen Yunlin (
While Chen has not said since where his information came from, the National Security Bureau has said it didn't give him the data.
"President Chen's information fell from the sky. Even all the intelligence chiefs have said that [the meeting did not happen], but President Chen has not apologized or given an explanation," Hsieh said yesterday.
PFP STATEMENT
In a written statement released by the PFP yesterday, the PFP denied that Soong had ever met with Chen Yunlin while he was on a month-long visit to the US earlier this year.
"If Mr. Chen Shui-bian does not even have the ability to evaluate his information, then does he have the ability to facilitate national policy?" the statement said.
"As the nation's leader, for him to willfully defame opposition leaders not only deeply harms his [Soong's] character, but also harms the integrity and sincerity of the president," the statement said.
According to the statement, outraged at the Presidential Office's subsequent silence on the issue, Soong had no choice but to pursue legal action in the interest of revealing the truth.
While the PFP and Soong have repeatedly demanded an apology from Chen for the remarks, the party had refrained from taking legal action until now out of courtesy to Chen, the statement said.
The Presidential Office had no comment on the lawsuit, saying only that it does not believe that the atmosphere of reconciliation between the ruling and opposition camps has been destroyed.
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
RSS