The army late last night demoted a company commander after he was accused of using a racial slur against a Japanese-Taiwanese conscript serving under him.
The commander, a captain, was removed from his post in the Yilan-based 153rd Infantry Brigade with immediate effect, the 6th Army Corps Command said in a statement.
Further disciplinary action could be taken pending the results of an internal probe, the command said, adding that the case would also be referred to prosecutors to investigate possible public insult charges.
Photo courtesy of the Eighth Field Army
All conscripts should be treated equally, without discrimination based on ethnicity or nationality, the command said.
The brigade has sent senior officials to apologize to the conscript and his family, it said.
The statement was issued after the conscript, who was serving his four months of compulsory military service, posted a complaint on social media earlier yesterday, accusing his company commander of repeatedly calling him a derogatory ethnic slur in Chinese.
The conscript said he had told the commander several times to stop using the slur, but the commander continued to disregard his complaint and even disparaged his mother and his fellow conscripts.
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