A Taichung-based music teacher on Wednesday was questioned for allegedly spreading rumors online that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and other officials at a Cabinet meeting had eaten extravagant lunchboxes that cost nearly NT$7,000 each, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said yesterday.
The 51-year-old man surnamed Liao (廖) faces charges of contravening the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) by “spreading rumors in a way that is sufficient to undermine public order and peace,” CIB Seventh Investigation Corps Deputy Captain Hsu Chao-pin (徐釗斌) said.
Investigators reviewing social media records to determine where the rumor had started found that Liao’s post on Facebook on Friday last week was the earliest to claim that Tsai and Cabinet officials had eaten the luxury seafood lunch, Hsu said.
Photo: Screen grab from a video posted on Facebook
A screen grab of the post showed a photograph of a tree-layer wooden lunchbox packed with seafood items, accompanied by text allegedly written by Liao.
“This is at the Tsai government’s Cabinet meeting, and the lunchboxes they were eating are full of delicacies,” Liao reportedly wrote.
The post also alleged that the food came from a luxury restaurant in Taipei.
“It’s stacked in three layers, each with 17 items, and enough food for four to six people. One set is priced at NT$8,880, but currently available at a special price of NT$6,980,” the post said.
“The Tsai government spends money extravagantly. In the past, under Lien Chan (連戰) [of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT)], they had NT$500 lunchboxes for Cabinet meetings, and were condemned with accusations that they were out of touch regarding the suffering of average people... So how about the Tsai government?” the post said.
Lien was premier from 1993 to 1997 and vice president from 1996 to 2000 under then president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝).
“There was no such lunchbox at the Cabinet meeting. It was fake news,” Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) said on Tuesday.
“Taiwan is an open and free society, and people can be creative, but they must not spread fake news, and must not breach the law by smearing someone’s good reputation. If such a rumor has contravened the law, then the judiciary should prosecute those who spread them,” Su said.
Liao denied having political motives in making the post, and said he saw the photo and message on other social media sites, the CIB said.
“The lunchbox looked delicious, and I just wanted to share the picture with my friends... It was unintentional and was not based on my personal political stance,” the CIB quoted him as saying.
The bureau’s investigation determined that Liao was most likely the originator of the rumor, Hsu said, adding that Liao had also posted on Facebook pages that show support for KMT and pan-blue camps.
“We have asked Liao to remove the post, and urge people not to produce, disseminate and share such disinformation and rumors on social media, as they would be prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Hsu said.
Kenting National Park service technician Yang Jien-fon (楊政峰) won a silver award in World Grand Prix Photography Awards Spring Season for his photograph of two male rat snakes intertwined in combat. Yang’s colleagues at Kenting National Park said he is a master of nature photography who has been held back by his job in civil service. The awards accept entries in all four seasons across six categories: architectural and urban photography, black-and-white and fine art photography, commercial and fashion photography, documentary and people photography, nature and experimental photography, and mobile photography. Awards are ranked according to scores and divided into platinum, gold and
More than half of the bamboo vipers captured in Tainan in the past few years were found in the city’s Sinhua District (新化), while other districts had smaller catches or none at all. Every year, Tainan captures about 6,000 snakes which have made their way into people’s homes. Of the six major venomous snakes in Taiwan, the cobra, the many-banded krait, the brown-spotted pit viper and the bamboo viper are the most frequently captured. The high concentration of bamboo vipers captured in Sinhua District is puzzling. Tainan Agriculture Bureau Forestry and Nature Conservation Division head Chu Chien-ming (朱健明) earlier this week said that the
BREACH OF CONTRACT: The bus operators would seek compensation and have demanded that the manufacturer replace the chips with ones that meet regulations Two bus operators found to be using buses with China-made chips are to demand that the original manufacturers replace the systems and provide compensation for breach of contract, the Veterans Affairs Council said yesterday. Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Michelle Lin (林楚茵) yesterday said that Da Nan Bus Co and Shin-Shin Bus Co Ltd have fielded a total of 82 buses that are using Chinese chips. The bus models were made by Tron-E, while the systems provider was CYE Electronics, Lin said. Lin alleged that the buses were using chips manufactured by Huawei subsidiary HiSilicon Co, which presents a national security risk if the
The National Immigration Agency has banned two Chinese from returning to Taiwan, after they published social media content it described as disrespectful to national sovereignty. The agency imposed a two-month ban on a Chinese man surnamed Liang (梁) and a permanent ban on a woman surnamed Yang (楊), an influencer with 23 million followers, in October last year and last week respectively. Minister of the Interior Liu Shyh-fang (劉世芳) yesterday said on the sidelines of a legislative meeting that Chinese visitors to Taiwan are required to comply with the rules and regulations governing their entry permits. The government has handled the ban and
RSS