The Taipei County Government Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Corps yesterday announced that two university law students were charged with violating the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法) after they stated on the social networking Web site Facebook that they wanted to sell their votes for the special -municipality elections on Saturday.
On Nov. 8, a law school senior surnamed Chang (張) wrote on his virtual wall that he would be willing to sell his vote for mayor in Sinbei City (the soon-to-be-renamed Taipei County) for NT$500.
In addition, the student said he would give his votes for city councilors to the party that purchased his mayoral vote, police said.
In a reply to the wall post, a classmate of Chang’s surnamed Lee (李) wrote that he wanted to sell not only his votes, but also those of his mother, police said.
Someone then printed out the page and brought it to police authorities.
The students told police the messages were intended as a joke and that they were aware that selling votes is illegal. However, they didn’t know that posting messages on the subject was also illegal, the pair said, adding that no one had approached them to buy their votes.
Police said the students had shown remorse and that their school had promised to educate them on the regulations that got them into trouble.
The two students were nevertheless charged could face a maximum sentence of three years in jail if found guilty.
Actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛) has “returned home” to Taiwan, and there are no plans to hold a funeral for the TV star who died in Japan from influenza- induced pneumonia, her family said in a statement Wednesday night. The statement was released after local media outlets reported that Barbie Hsu’s ashes were brought back Taiwan on board a private jet, which arrived at Taipei Songshan Airport around 3 p.m. on Wednesday. To the reporters waiting at the airport, the statement issued by the family read “(we) appreciate friends working in the media for waiting in the cold weather.” “She has safely returned home.
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MUST REMAIN FREE: A Chinese takeover of Taiwan would lead to a global conflict, and if the nation blows up, the world’s factories would fall in a week, a minister said Taiwan is like Prague in 1938 facing Adolf Hitler; only if Taiwan remains free and democratic would the world be safe, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera. The ministry on Saturday said Corriere della Sera is one of Italy’s oldest and most read newspapers, frequently covers European economic and political issues, and that Wu agreed to an interview with the paper’s senior political analyst Massimo Franco in Taipei on Jan. 3. The interview was published on Jan. 26 with the title “Taiwan like Prague in 1938 with Hitler,” the ministry