Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) on Thursday criticized the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for not withdrawing Legislator Chen Hsueh-sheng’s (陳雪生) nomination ahead of elections next year after a court ruled that he had harassed Fan during a scuffle inside the legislature in Taipei in 2020.
Fan said that the KMT — which on Wednesday released the results of its internal investigation of the matter — had deceived the public by promising to “apply the highest standard regarding sexual harassment cases.”
The KMT’s decision to permit Chen to retain his nomination to run in the legislative race for Lienchiang County was “nauseating” and “a big joke,” Fan said.
Photo: Taipei Times
The High Court earlier this month upheld a ruling against Chen and ordered him to pay NT$80,000 in compensation after Fan filed a civil lawsuit against him for bumping her from behind three times as lawmakers jostled inside the legislative chamber.
The court reached its decision after viewing videos of the incident and hearing the accounts of other lawmakers, with some saying that they heard Chen comment: “It is not sexual harassment, as you cannot get pregnant from [being bumped by] a belly.”
The KMT in its report on Wednesday ordered Chen to attend a gender equality course, but said he would retain his nomination as “he did not contravene any party rules for candidates.”
“The incident occurred amid a physical altercation, during which it would have been impossible to avoid contact with others,” it said.
“I was the victim of Chen’s sexual harassment and the KMT’s decision is a big joke,” Fan wrote online. “It claims to apply the highest standards, but in reality it applied the highest level of tolerance.”
“It is nauseating,” she wrote. “The court ruled that he was culpable.”
“The KMT’s decision harms the reputation of members of the legislature,” she added.
DPP Legislator Hung Sun-han (洪申翰) said that the KMT has double standards.
“It is concerned about political issues, so it can condone a sexual harassment offender,” Hung said.
KMT Legislator Wang Hung-wei (王鴻薇) and other KMT members have been vocal in their demands that former DPP deputy secretary-general Lin Fei-fan (林飛帆) have his nomination for a legislative seat in Taipei revoked following allegations that Lin did not respond properly to a party staff member’s complaints about being harassed, Hung said.
“A DPP internal probe showed that Lin was not a fault, but he withdrew anyway, but Wang and other KMT members are supporting Chen, who was found culpable by a court,” Hung said.
Chen can continue his campaign and he was given “a slap on the wrist” by only having to attend a gender equality course, which is in no way comparable with the high standards Wang demanded that the DPP adhere to, Hung added.
The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) and Chunghwa Telecom yesterday confirmed that an international undersea cable near Keelung Harbor had been cut by a Chinese ship, the Shunxin-39, a freighter registered in Cameroon. Chunghwa Telecom said the cable had its own backup equipment, and the incident would not affect telecommunications within Taiwan. The CGA said it dispatched a ship under its first fleet after receiving word of the incident and located the Shunxin-39 7 nautical miles (13km) north of Yehliu (野柳) at about 4:40pm on Friday. The CGA demanded that the Shunxin-39 return to seas closer to Keelung Harbor for investigation over the
An apartment building in New Taipei City’s Sanchong District (三重) collapsed last night after a nearby construction project earlier in the day allegedly caused it to tilt. Shortly after work began at 9am on an ongoing excavation of a construction site on Liuzhang Street (六張街), two neighboring apartment buildings tilted and cracked, leading to exterior tiles peeling off, city officials said. The fire department then dispatched personnel to help evacuate 22 residents from nine households. After the incident, the city government first filled the building at No. 190, which appeared to be more badly affected, with water to stabilize the
DEEPER REVIEW: After receiving 19 hospital reports of suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health applied for an epidemiological investigation A buffet restaurant in Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) is to be fined NT$3 million (US$91,233) after it remained opened despite an order to suspend operations following reports that 32 people had been treated for suspected food poisoning, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. The health department said it on Tuesday received reports from hospitals of people who had suspected food poisoning symptoms, including nausea, vomiting, stomach pain and diarrhea, after they ate at an INPARADISE (饗饗) branch in Breeze Xinyi on Sunday and Monday. As more than six people who ate at the restaurant sought medical treatment, the department ordered the
Taiwan plans to cull as many as 120,000 invasive green iguanas this year to curb the species’ impact on local farmers, the Ministry of Agriculture said. Chiu Kuo-hao (邱國皓), a section chief in the ministry’s Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency, on Sunday said that green iguanas have been recorded across southern Taiwan and as far north as Taichung. Although there is no reliable data on the species’ total population in the country, it has been estimated to be about 200,000, he said. Chiu said about 70,000 iguanas were culled last year, including about 45,000 in Pingtung County, 12,000 in Tainan, 9,900 in
RSS