The application for early retirement of Taipei’s Xinyi District (信義) police chief Lee Te-wei (李德威) was approved yesterday, leading to fervid speculation that his move was related to admonition Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) gave to him.
Ko warned Lee, 54, on national television two weeks ago, threatening to fire him if the police department is unable to prevent future occurrence of repeated attacks on Falun Gong practitioners by members of the pro-unification Patriot Association (愛國同心會) near the Taipei 101 building.
In a short statement, Lee denied that there was any connection between his decision and the mayor’s criticism.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“Even though it comes at a tricky time, my retirement has been a long time coming,” he said.
Lee’s wife, Taipei fire department chief secretary Yang Ping-fen (楊炳芬), 55, also announced her retirement from her position.
Lee’s retirement sparked rampant speculation in local media, with Chinese-language newspaper United Daily News linking it to Lee’s reportedly close relationship with former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
In a statement on Facebook, Hau said he was “extremely reluctant” to see Lee go, adding he had “heavily relied” on Lee in communications between the police department and the Taipei City Council during his time in office.
Hau praised Lee and Yang as “intelligent, capable, loyal and responsible officials.”
The United Daily News also speculated that Yang’s decision was linked to Ko’s public admonition last week of the city’s fire department performance.
“We must respect people’s decisions,” Ko said when questioned about Lee’s resignation.
He said that given retirement has to be applied for well in advance, it was unlikely that Lee’s decision was related to his criticism.
Ko said that he was not worried about the possibility of officials applying for retirement or job transfers following new requirements for officials to be available around the clock via the Line application, adding that it was difficult for officials to transfer.
In an interview with the Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper, Yang said that her husband had first thought about retiring in September last year, with his desire to retire growing stronger after a controversial police officer death in his district.
She added that she “had not seen him in a long time” because of the heavy weight of the duties he bore as police chief, often not coming home for more than 10 days because of incidents at Xinyi District night clubs on weekend nights.
She said she was unable to comment on whether Lee’s decision was linked to Ko’s criticism, but added that she “could not understand” why Ko would make the comments.
Lee’s daughter Sara Lee (李培毓) in a Facebook statement defended her father from netizens comparing him to a “rotten strawberry,” unable to bear up under pressure from his boss.
She said netizens who made the comments had no understanding of the difficulties that police officers face.
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,
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
RSS