The Hualien County Police Bureau yesterday said that it was investigating a letter sent to Acting Hualien County Commissioner Tsai Pi-chung (蔡碧仲) threatening to kill him if he tried to remove Hualien commissioner-elect Hsu Chen-wei (徐榛蔚) from office.
The letter was sent to the commissioner’s office by registered mail for prompt delivery on Saturday, the bureau’s criminal investigation brigade said, adding that the return address on the envelope was false.
In the letter, the sender threatened to murder Tsai if he forced Hsu to step down as commissioner for “whatever reason.”
Photo: CNA
The sender said that they are not a supporter of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), but an independent voter who finds the Democratic Progressive Party’s “political persecution” of former Hualien county commissioner Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁)— Hsu’s husband — “cruel and vicious.”
The letter said that Tsai had constantly criticized Hsu in the media, investigated the Dongyang Plaza case and looked for reasons to investigate bribery.
The Dongyang Plaza case refers to alleged illegalities in the sale of public land in downtown Hualien during Fu’s administration.
“If you ‘take down’ Hsu, I will show no mercy and kill you inhumanely,” the sender said, adding that they also had information about Tsai’s family, his wife and his children.
The sender called themselves a “ghost figure” and apologized for their “rude words” at the end.
The letter was signed “Tsai Chu-chung (蔡除腫)” while the envelope was signed “Tsai Chu-chung (蔡朱重).”
The police said it had formed a task force to investigate the case and suspects that the letter was sent by a political “fanatic.”
Tsai said he had seen the letter and would leave it to the police to handle the case.
He added that as he is to leave office soon, he would pay attention to his own safety and protect the safety of his family.
As for the letter’s demand that he not investigate Hsu, Tsai said he believed it was an admission of her supporter’s guilt.
Hopefully, people could act more rationally when it comes to politics, instead of showing so much hatred and opposition, he said.
Hsu is to be inaugurated tomorrow.
Considering that most countries issue more than five denominations of banknotes, the central bank has decided to redesign all five denominations, the bank said as it prepares for the first major overhaul of the banknotes in more than 24 years. Central bank Governor Yang Chin-lung (楊金龍) is expected to report to the Legislative Yuan today on the bank’s operations and the redesign’s progress. The bank in a report sent to the legislature ahead of today’s meeting said it had commissioned a survey on the public’s preferences. Survey results showed that NT$100 and NT$1,000 banknotes are the most commonly used, while NT$200 and NT$2,000
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday reported the first case of a new COVID-19 subvariant — BA.3.2 — in a 10-year-old Singaporean girl who had a fever upon arrival in Taiwan and tested positive for the disease. The girl left Taiwan on March 20 and the case did not have a direct impact on the local community, it said. The WHO added the BA.3.2 strain to its list of Variants Under Monitoring in December last year, but this was the first imported case of the COVID-19 variant in Taiwan, CDC Deputy Director-General Lin Ming-cheng (林明誠) said. The girl arrived in Taiwan on
South Korea is planning to revise its controversial electronic arrival card, a step Taiwanese officials said prompted them to hold off on planned retaliatory measures, a South Korean media report said yesterday. A Yonhap News Agency report said that the South Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs is planning to remove the “previous departure place” and “next destination” fields from its e-arrival card system. The plan, reached after interagency consultations, is under review and aims to simplify entry procedures and align the electronic form with the paper version, a South Korean ministry official said. The fields — which appeared only on the electronic form
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is suspending retaliation measures against South Korea that were set to take effect tomorrow, after Seoul said it is updating its e-arrival system, MOFA said today. The measures were to be a new round of retaliation after Taiwan on March 1 changed South Korea's designation on government-issued alien resident certificates held by South Korean nationals to "South Korea” from the "Republic of Korea," the country’s official name. The move came after months of protests to Seoul over its listing of Taiwan as "China (Taiwan)" in dropdown menus on its new online immigration entry system. MOFA last week
RSS