The Kaohsiung District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday questioned a lead organizer and conducted searches as part of an investigation into alleged recall petition signature fraud, making Kaohsiung the latest city to launch a probe into recall efforts targeting Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers.
The campaign, which refers to itself as a “double strike” campaign against the DPP, is seeking to recall legislators Hsu Chih-chieh (許智傑) and Huang Jie (黃捷).
Police questioned Chu Lei (朱磊), who is leading the campaign against Hsu, and confiscated several computers.
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
The residences of Chu and another campaign leader, surnamed Huang (黃), were also searched.
Speaking to reporters, Chu said he was “not surprised” by the investigation and said it “demonstrates the importance” of the recall campaign.
Chu said details about the case were not fully clear to him and declined to comment further.
However, he added that the search was unrelated to the second stage of the recall campaign and called on the public to continue supporting their efforts.
The prosecutors’ office declined to comment on the investigation.
Hsu Shang-hsien (徐尚賢), the “double strike” campaign leader, called the search an example of “blatant political interference.”
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chapter in Kaohsiung said it was not involved with the campaign, although it called for a fair judicial process and asked investigators to act impartially.
Legislative Speaker and former Kaohsiung mayor Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) wrote on Facebook that the public expects the judiciary to uphold democracy and the rule of law, and urged prosecutors and police to defend their independence.
Han expressed hope that the judicial process would never serve any political party and that those involved would uphold Taiwan’s hard-won freedoms.
Meanwhile, in Taipei, prosecutors yesterday filed a motion to detain four KMT staffers over their alleged involvement in falsifying signatures in a campaign drive to recall DPP lawmakers in the city.
The four are KMT Taipei Chapter chief Huang Lu Ching-ju (黃呂錦茹), chapter secretary-general Chu Wen-ching (初文卿), chapter secretary Yao Fu-wen (姚富文) and first district committee executive director Tseng Fan-chuan (曾繁川).
They were supporting a KMT-backed campaign to recall DPP legislators Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶).
Prosecutors asked the Taipei District Court for permission to detain the four people and hold them incommunicado on suspicion of criminal forgery and contraventions of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法), the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said.
Prosecutors said that there was a risk they could flee, collude with others or destroy evidence.
Additional reporting by Ko Yu-hao
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