A reporter and professor were sentenced to nine and six months in prison respectively and stripped of their civil rights for two years by the Taichung branch of the High Court today for fabricating election polls during the last presidential election.
Reporter Lin Hsien-yuan (林獻元) allegedly accepted 130,000 yuan (US$17,936) from the Chinese Communist Party and worked with Taichung-based Tunghai University professor Su Yuan-hwa (蘇雲華) to disseminate fake polls that would influence election results.
The dissemination of fake opinion polls misleads voters and endangers the nation’s sovereignty and democracy, prosecutors said, accusing Lin and Su of contravening the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法).
Photo: Chang Jui-chen, Taipei Times
The Taichung District Court ruled this law did not apply, and instead sentenced Lin and Su to eight and four months in prison respectively for contravening the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act (總統副總統選罷法).
The prosecution was dissatisfied with this ruling and appealed.
The Taichung branch of the High Court issued a second ruling today, stating that the defendants contravened both acts and increased their sentences.
The High Court also granted Su a two-year probation.
It did not provide additional reasoning for the ruling, which can be appealed.
Prosecutors initially accused the defendants of following instructions from China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua (陳斌華) to publish nine false presidential election polls.
In the first trial by the district court, Su admitted to the crimes, while Lin said that his manipulation of polling data was not politically motivated and that the money he received was for purchasing teapots on behalf of his Chinese friends.
As Lin had been engaged in cross-strait journalism for a long period, the court ruled that interactions with Chinese reporters and officials were understandable and did not indicate he was following their commands.
The false polls released before Nov. 24, 2023, were deemed not punishable, as candidates had not yet registered at that time.
The two polls fabricated after that date were ruled to have contravened the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act.
The district court also ruled that Lin contravened the Company Act (公司法) by borrowing money from a friend to meet the minimum capital threshold required to found his media company.
The High Court maintained this ruling.
STAY AWAY: An official said people should avoid disturbing snakes, as most do not actively attack humans, but would react defensively if threatened Taitung County authorities yesterday urged the public to stay vigilant and avoid disturbing snakes in the wild, following five reported snakebite cases in the county so far this year. Taitung County Fire Department secretary Lin Chien-cheng (林建誠) said two of the cases were in Donghe Township (東河) and involved the Taiwan habus, one person was bit by a Chinese pit viper near the South Link Railway and the remaining two were caused by unidentified snakes. He advised residents near fields to be cautious of snakes hiding in shady indoor areas, especially when entering or leaving their homes at night. In case of a
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
RSS