Tainan city councilors of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday demanded that Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) apologize to the public for “obstructing free speech” after he ordered prosecutors to investigate them over their claim that fake Triple Stimulus Coupons were circulating the city.
At a news conference held at the legislature where they were joined by KMT legislators, Tainan City councilors Wang Chia-chen (王家貞) and Lee Chung-tsen (李中岑) said that Su, who brushed off concerns about fake stimulus coupons being used at small shops in Tainan, was obstructing free speech and “reversing the course of democracy.”
Su should apologize, they added.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Wang and Lee said that after they held a news conference on July 20 alleging that there had been counterfeit vouchers circulating, they and their assistants were late last month summoned by the Tainan District Prosecutors’ Office for questioning on a charge of breaching the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法).
This was a violation of their free speech rights, they said.
When approached by prosecutors, they provided a fake voucher to them as evidence, Lee said, adding that she was unsure what they had done to break the law.
When the DPP was an opposition party, it criticized the legislation as a violation of free speech and proposed revising the act, but after coming to power, the DPP found the law useful and changed its tactics, KMT Legislator Yeh Yu-lan (葉毓蘭) said.
In bringing up the issue of fake stimulus coupons, the councilors were doing their duty as representatives of the city’s residents, KMT caucus secretary-general Lin Yi-hua (林奕華) said.
The DPP’s use of the act to silence them was a way of holding on to power, she said.
Su added insult to injury by brushing off concerns about the fake vouchers, she said, adding that Su should publicly apologize.
“Unless the councilors made the fake coupons themselves, in what way did they cause a social disturbance?” KMT caucus whip Lin Wei-chou (林為洲) asked.
The DPP often questioned government policy when it was an opposition party, but never produced any evidence of wrongdoing by the KMT administration, Lin said.
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