Former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) political talk show on a local cable TV channel was canceled before its first airing yesterday, as authorities cited possible contraventions of medical parole.
The interview-based program was scheduled to premiere on Mirror TV’s YouTube channel and be broadcast at 10am every Sunday.
After Mirror TV advertised the new program on its YouTube channel in the past few days, the cancelation came as a surprise, Chen wrote yesterday morning on his Facebook page as he apologized for “having to disappoint everyone.”
Photo: Screen grab from Chen’s Facebook page
Although the National Communications Commission green-lighted it, “Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) ordered that the program be canceled,” Chen wrote, adding that otherwise he would be “sent back to prison.”
The Ministry of Justice’s Agency of Corrections Director Lin Hsien-ming (林憲銘) told him about the order in a phone call, Chen said.
Agency of Corrections spokesman and Deputy Director Liu Ming-chang (劉明彰) said that “inmates serving imprisonment terms when out on medical parole must comply on the prescribed measures.”
Liu did not comment on whether Cho had ordered that the program not be aired, saying that he did not receive such a directive from the premier.
Chen, 75, has been out on medical parole since Jan. 5, 2015, after serving more than six years of a 20-year sentence, a consolidated term stemming from multiple corruption-related convictions involving actions during his two terms as president from 2000 to 2008.
Taichung Prison said its parole board decided to halt the program.
It said that the former president’s medical parole “prohibits him from engaging in political activities, election campaign events, going on stage, giving public addresses and giving interviews to media.”
“He must abide by the terms of the medical parole, and we shall supervise to ensure compliance with the law,” it said.
Additional reporting by CNA
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