Pro-independence New Taiwan Weekly magazine news desk director Chen Tsung-yi (陳宗逸) has accused the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government of intimidating him because of his political ideology.
“On [Wednesday] morning, four men who identified themselves as agents from the Investigation Bureau’s Taipei City branch searched my residence in Taoyuan in relation to a corruption case after identifying themselves and showing a search warrant,” Chen said in an e-mail on Wednesday.
The agents prevented Chen from taking pictures as they searched, and he engaged in a verbal dispute with them.
“An agent who appeared to be the leader told me that I could be charged for interfering with official duties and asked me to delete all the pictures that I took,” Chen wrote. “I didn’t know much about the law, so I deleted the pictures.”
During the search, Chen said the agents talked on the telephone with what seemed to be two superiors and mentioned the US-based pro-Taiwan group Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA).
“I asked them what FAPA — an overseas civic organization that promotes Taiwan independence — had to do with a corruption case. The leader said he could not reveal details about the investigation and that promoting Taiwan independence was not an issue since the nation is a democracy,” Chen said in the e-mail.
He added that the lead agent continued to ask about FAPA and another US-based pro-independence organization, the North America Taiwanese Professors’ Association.
“Suddenly I realized that the purge by prosecutors and the Investigation Bureau is now looking at overseas pro-independence groups and I was searched because my uncle has long served as FAPA chairman and executive director — in other words, I think this [search] was a warning to me,” Chen wrote.
“My mother was frightened — she has worried that I will be arrested since I was in junior high school. After 20 years of the democratization of Taiwan, my mother’s nightmare may come true. I believe the curtain has just been raised and it’s time to fight,” he wrote.
The e-mail is widely available and posted on several online forums.
When contacted by the Taipei Times via telephone yesterday, Chen confirmed the incident, but declined to comment further.
Judicial Reform Foundation executive director Lin Feng-jeng (林峰正) criticized the agents for not allowing Chen to take pictures and not revealing the details of the case against him.
“I wouldn’t say [the agents] have violated the law, since the law only says that the person involved must be present during a search and they could argue that [Chen] should not take pictures to avoid a leak of details about the investigation,” Lin said. “However, the law doesn’t prohibit taking pictures either. If you’re conducting a search at my place, why can’t I take pictures or be told details about the case in which I’m suspected to be involved?”
A spokesman for the Investigation Bureau’s Taipei City branch, Huang Yu-chu (黃郁初), declined to comment yesterday, saying that he knew nothing about the case.
Meanwhile, political columnist Paul Lin (林保華) penned an article in the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) on Wednesday in which he said police from his local precinct had come to his house for no reason.
Paul Lin said he suspected the visit had something to do with recent articles he has written on police abusing their power and disregarding human rights.
In response, police said they were on a routine household visit and that it had nothing to do with Paul Lin’s background or his political opinions. They said they were willing to talk with Paul Lin if any misunderstanding had been caused by the timing of the visit and were willing to explain their procedures for household visits.
In Paul Lin’s article, he states that he is originally from Hong Kong and became a Taiwanese citizen years ago, but the police asked him to fill in a document for “people from mainland China.” Paul Lin said he was not at home at the time and his wife informed him of the visit by phone.
Paul Lin said he believes the visit may also have been connected to his presence in court last week, where he sat in on the trial of former Songshan Precinct chief Huang Jia-lu (黃嘉祿) for infringing freedoms, and that police used the visit to warn Paul Lin that they could label him a person from China to control him.
Reached for comment, staff at Taipei City’s Wanhua Precinct said Lin recently moved from Zhongshan District (中山) to Wanhua District (萬華) and that it was a routine household visit, which had started in the area last month.
The police said they had visited every household in the building in which Paul Lin lives and had only asked Lin to fill in basic information, such as his profession and the members of his family who lived there.
The police denied they asked him to fill in any document to do with “people from mainland China” and that they did not ask Paul Lin’s wife to give such information.
Paul Lin’s article mentioned in the story will be published on page 8 in tomorrow’s Taipei Times.
ENDEAVOR MANTA: The ship is programmed to automatically return to its designated home port and would self-destruct if seized by another party The Endeavor Manta, Taiwan’s first military-specification uncrewed surface vehicle (USV) tailor-made to operate in the Taiwan Strait in a bid to bolster the nation’s asymmetric combat capabilities made its first appearance at Kaohsiung’s Singda Harbor yesterday. Taking inspiration from Ukraine’s navy, which is using USVs to force Russia’s Black Sea fleet to take shelter within its own ports, CSBC Taiwan (台灣國際造船) established a research and development unit on USVs last year, CSBC chairman Huang Cheng-hung (黃正弘) said. With the exception of the satellite guidance system and the outboard motors — which were purchased from foreign companies that were not affiliated with Chinese-funded
PERMIT REVOKED: The influencer at a news conference said the National Immigration Agency was infringing on human rights and persecuting Chinese spouses Chinese influencer “Yaya in Taiwan” (亞亞在台灣) yesterday evening voluntarily left Taiwan, despite saying yesterday morning that she had “no intention” of leaving after her residence permit was revoked over her comments on Taiwan being “unified” with China by military force. The Ministry of the Interior yesterday had said that it could forcibly deport the influencer at midnight, but was considering taking a more flexible approach and beginning procedures this morning. The influencer, whose given name is Liu Zhenya (劉振亞), departed on a 8:45pm flight from Taipei International Airport (Songshan airport) to Fuzhou, China. Liu held a news conference at the airport at 7pm,
Authorities yesterday elaborated on the rules governing Employment Gold Cards after a US cardholder was barred from entering Taiwan for six years after working without a permit during a 2023 visit. American YouTuber LeLe Farley was barred after already being approved for an Employment Gold Card, he said in a video published on his channel on Saturday. Farley, who has more than 420,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was approved for his Gold Card last month, but was told at a check-in counter at the Los Angeles International Airport that he could not enter Taiwan. That was because he previously participated in two
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS