Legislator Wu Ping-jui (吳秉叡) yesterday filed a judicial complaint against people who accused him online of meddling with government efforts to procure a foreign-made COVID-19 vaccine and allegedly earning US$300 million in kickbacks.
Wu of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) filed the complaint of aggravated defamation at the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office after his office gathered evidence on 10 people whose posts mentioning Wu were widely circulated on social media.
The reposts reportedly sparked controversy among Internet users on leading online discussion sites, including Professional Technology Temple and Dcard.
Photo: Chien Lee-chung, Taipei Times
“The accusations arose from falsified, erroneous information formulated to interfere with efforts by health authorities to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, and aimed at creating fear and panic in society,” Wu’s office said in a statement.
“Despite earlier clarifications, some Internet users continued to post the disinformation and false accusations, circulating them wider through social media, to achieve their malevolent intention,” it added.
“Those Internet users produced drawings and memes to scorn and disparage me and top health officials,” it said. “This complaint of defamation is being filed to protect my integrity and to halt such fake news and disinformation.”
Wu accused members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and pundits on political talk shows of obliquely referring to him as a meddler in the procurement of a vaccine, which he said resulted in Internet users blatantly accusing him by name.
The Chinese-language China Times reported that KMT Taipei City Councilor Yu Shu-hui (游淑慧) and former KMT legislator Sun Ta-chien (孫大千) accused a DPP lawmaker surnamed Wu of bringing representatives of Taiwan Biotech and Jacobson Pharma to meet with Central Epidemic Command Center officials about purchasing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The report quoted Sun as saying that the talks led to a new deal that raised the price from NT$31 to NT$40 per dose for the government, adding that Sun, Yu and other KMT politicians claimed that the new price would allow Wu to pocket a US$300 million kickback.
Asked about the accusations, Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) said: “No lawmakers interfered in the vaccine procurement policy, or came to lobby us to purchase doses from a certain firm.”
The center has mechanisms in place for vaccine procurement, including a legal team and an evaluation team, which are overseen by top center officials, he said.
“I can say with 100 percent certainty that no lawmakers came to lobby us, as they cannot meddle in the vaccine procurement process,” Chen said.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do
RSS