New Party spokesman Wang Ping-chung (王炳忠) yesterday filed a civil lawsuit against media personality Clara Chou (周玉蔻), accusing her of leaking classified information and making libelous statements.
Wang was accompanied by his father, Wang Chin-pu (王進步), and lawyer Chen Li-ling (陳麗玲), along with several supporters as he filed the litigation at the Taipei District Court to seek NT$1.487 million (US$50,345) in financial compensation from Chou.
The numbers “1487” sound similar to the Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese) phrase “She is a moron” (伊是白癡).
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
“Chou has made false accusations against me and my father,” Wang Ping-chung said. “I am filing this case to seek justice for my family, to cleanse the pollution from Taiwan’s media environment and to fight for respect on behalf of all people working in the media.”
He pointed to Chou’s statements on TV talk shows “in which she said that my family had received NT$5 million, and that the money came from Chinese political and military authorities to support the development of some sort of network, and even the setting up of paramilitary organizations. She said that the money came from overseas and was deposited in US dollars. None of these allegations have factual basis.”
Wang Ping-chung asked the judiciary to investigate the source of the accusations, as Chou said that her information did not come from prosecutors or judicial investigators.
“How could she have the ability to obtain such information? I demand that the court find out if someone had been leaking information from a case under judicial investigation,” he said.
The New Party spokesman said that Chou damaged his and his father’s reputation, and committed offenses of aggravated libel and leaking classified information.
Wang Ping-chung, along with New Party Youth Corps members Hou Han-ting (侯漢廷), Lin Ming-cheng (林明正) and Chen Ssu-chun (陳斯俊), last month came under investigation in connection with a judicial probe into convicted Chinese spy Zhou Hongxu (周泓旭) for their alleged involvement in developing a spying network and setting up the Fire News Web site using funds from China.
Taipei prosecutors last week told a news conference that they found evidence that China’s Taiwan Affairs Office promised to pay Wang Ping-chung about NT$16 million a year for running the Fire New Web site and establishing pro-unification organizations.
Wang Ping-chung on Wednesday last week filed for charges of aggravated libel against the SET News news division head and a reporter at the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister newspaper of the Taipei Times).
In related news, investigators have uncovered a colonel’s involvement in the espionage case, the Chinese-language Mirror Media reported.
The colonel is stationed at the Army Command Headquarters in Taoyuan, the report said.
Judicial investigators were alarmed by the finding, as the colonel had developed personal friendships there for the development of a spy network for China, which could have serious implications for national security, the report said.
The colonel is responsible for army units, and has access to top-level information on military intelligence, telecommunications, combat troop deployments and political warfare, as wells as assignments for the army’s corps of engineers and chemical warfare defenses, it added.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
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Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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