Tainan prosecutors today pressed charges against 11 people including several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) staffers for alleged document forgery in recall campaigns targeting two Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, while granting deferred prosecution to another 37 people.
Prosecutors said the 11 people, including KMT Tainan chapter deputy director Chuang Chan-kuei (莊占魁), KMT staffers and acquaintances, are suspected of forging petition signatures in an effort to recall DPP Legislators Wang Ting-yu (王定宇) and Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲).
In the recall campaign targeting Wang, 1,679 signatures were forged, including 70 signatures of deceased people, while in the recall campaign targeting Lin, 1,934 signatures were forged, including 60 signatures of deceased people, people familiar with the matter said.
Photo: Taipei Times file photo
Chuang, who is being detained, is to be tried at the Tainan District Court.
Prosecutors said they used the KMT’s Tainan constituency party members’ personal information in the recall campaigns without consent and forged their signatures in petitions submitted to the Central Election Commission (CEC).
Two chapter office directors, surnamed Huang (黃) and Lin (林), offered NT$2 and NT$3 for each name list copied for the recall petitions, prosecutors said.
The defendants are accused of document forgery and contravening the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法) by illegally processing the personal information of others.
Another 37 people, including KMT staffers and their family and friends, were granted deferred prosecution and face fines ranging from NT$10,000 to NT$100,000.
KMT Legislator Hsieh Lung-chieh (謝龍介), the party’s Tainan chapter director, said he respects prosecutors’ investigation.
The party would concentrate efforts on the second-stage petitions, he said.
The CEC today declined to comment on judicial procedures when asked whether the prosecution would affect the recall campaigns targeting Wang and Lin.
The election commission is not to respond to scenarios not involving Article 87 of the Public Officials Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法), it said.
Article 87 of the act stipulates that if the person subject to recall dies, leaves office or resigns before election day, the election commission shall issue a public notice about the termination of the recall.
In related news, prosecutors today requested to detain KMT Keelung chapter director Wu Kuo-sheng (吳國勝) after searching the KMT’s Keelung chapter for the second time in connection with an investigation into forged signatures used in recall campaigns targeting two DPP city councilors.
Another suspect, Han Chi-yuan (韓元吉), a former KMT staffer, was released on NT$100,000 bail this morning.
Prosecutors took away surveillance equipment on the second floor of the chapter office, the KMT member registers and some other documents after the search ended yesterday evening when the residences of Wu and Han were also searched.
Wu was listed as a defendant after being questioned as a witness.
Prosecutors said Wu met other “unexposed accomplices” after he was released on bail and therefore requested permission to detain him this morning.
A detention hearing is to be held today.
Han denied wrongdoing when leaving the Keelung Prosecutors’ Office this morning, accusing the prosecutors of persecuting the KMT.
Chi Wen-chuan (紀文荃), one of the recall campaign's leaders, has been reportedly detained and held incommunicado, while Yu Cheng-i (游正義), another recall campaign leader, was released on NT$150,000 bail.
The Keelung District Court on Tuesday approved a request by prosecutors to detain Chang Yuan-hsiang (張淵翔), a former director of the Keelung Department of Civil Affairs, who was also alleged to be involved in this case.
Chang has been accused of illegally accessing the household registration system to help revise and verify a list of members of the KMT in Keelung to assist the effort to gather signatures in a bid to recall DPP city councilors Cheng Wen-ting (鄭文婷) and Jiho Tiun (張之豪).
Additional reporting by Lin Ching-chuan
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
Taiwanese singer Jay Chou (周杰倫) plans to take to the courts of the Australian Open for the first time as a competitor in the high-stakes 1 Point Slam. The Australian Open yesterday afternoon announced the news on its official Instagram account, welcoming Chou — who celebrates his 47th birthday on Sunday — to the star-studded lineup of the tournament’s signature warm-up event. “From being the King of Mandarin Pop filling stadiums with his music to being Kato from The Green Hornet and now shifting focus to being a dedicated tennis player — welcome @jaychou to the 1 Point Slam and #AusOpen,” the
RSS