The Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office today concluded its investigation into allegations of recall petition forgery at the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) Taichung chapter, indicting 34 party workers.
The chapter falsified 4,258 signatures in the first stage of recall campaigns targeting DPP legislators Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) and Ho Hsin-chun (何欣純), accounting for more than 70 percent of the signatures collected, prosecutors said.
KMT Taichung chapter secretary-general Chen Chien-feng (陳劍鋒) and executive director Wu Kang-lung (伍康龍) were among those indicted.
Photo: Taipei Times file
The charges against the 34 include document forgery under the Criminal Code and use of personal data by non-governmental entities in contravention of the Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
Chen, Wu and two others were also charged with illegal use of personal data to forge or impersonate petitioners, in contravention of the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act (公職人員選舉罷免法).
Chen and Wu have also been accused of deleting chat records to destroy evidence.
They initially denied the allegations during the investigation, but both confessed after being detained, prosecutors said, adding that they would still ask the court impose heavy penalties to set an example.
Wu served as the overall coordinator of the recall effort, proposing the idea of copying personal information from KMT membership lists to forge recall petition forms, while Chen assisted and facilitated the operation, prosecutors said.
Workers pulled KMT membership lists for Taichung’s Central (中區) and Xitun (西屯) districts from the database and selected names to use on recall petition forms, but were instructed to avoid using those belonging to people over the age of 80 or names with simplified Chinese characters, prosecutors said.
Wu then directed party workers to alternate between blue and black pens, mix their writing styles and date the forms Feb. 1 or 2 to fall within the legal requirements, they said.
Prosecutors searched the Taichung chapter on May 2, and arrested Chen and Wu, who have been held incommunicado since.
Of those involved, 28 acknowledged all wrongdoing, cooperated with the investigation and assisted in identifying forged petition entries, prosecutors said.
They also worked under instruction and were pressured by Wu and Chen, so if they plead guilty in court, prosecutors might recommend more lenient sentences, such as probation, they said.
In the Tsai recall campaign, 2,360 signatures were collected, including supplementary petitions submitted on March 11, exceeding the required threshold of 2,235, the Taichung Election Commission found.
Only 640 signatures were verified as genuine and 1,720 were forged, meaning 72.88 percent were falsified, prosecutors said.
As for the Ho recall campaign, 3,513 signatures were collected, above the required threshold of 3,297, but only 975 were verified as genuine, and 2,538, or 72.25 percent, were found to be falsified, they said.
The forgeries led to the wrongful approval of recall proposals that would have otherwise fallen short of the legal threshold required to pass the first stage, prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by CNA
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS