Kaohsiung Mayor Han Kuo-yu’s (韓國瑜) campaign office yesterday said that it would boycott all talk shows by SETN (三立新聞) and press charges against the news network for alleging that Han on Sunday held an infant without her parents’ consent.
SETN yesterday reported that the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) presidential candidate angered a mother by hugging and kissing her child without her consent during the awards ceremony of a baby crawl race in New Taipei City.
Han’s campaign office spokeswoman Anne Wang (王淺秋) said that the mother handed the baby over to Han, and that both parents were not against the mayor carrying their child on stage.
Photo: CNA
Rumors about Han holding the infant without her parents’ consent originated from a Facebook post by a person who claimed to be a friend of the mother, Wang told a news conference at KMT headquarters.
It was then shared by two Facebook fan pages — “No KMT is Good” (打馬悍將粉絲團) and “Just Against the Blue” (只是堵藍) — before SETN picked up the story, she said.
Given the news network’s “apparent bias,” starting today, the campaign office’s spokespeople would no longer attend any talk shows produced by SETN, she said.
“All their news reports and programs are just pretending to be unbiased,” she said.
“They have lost their credibility,” she added.
The office today is to file criminal charges against all responsible persons in the Facebook groups and SETN for spreading false reports about the mayor, Han’s spokesman Cheng Chao-hsin (鄭照新) said.
Before the news conference, the infant’s father, surnamed Wang (王), told reporters that since the mayor was presenting an award to his daughter, it would have been strange to refuse Han.
He is not a fan of the mayor, but “it is not like Han was a homeless man or a bad guy,” he said.
Certain media and netizens have overinterpreted the incident, he said, adding that he did not like seeing a simple baby race turned into a campaign against the mayor.
However, he plans to press charges against physician Chiang Kuan-yu (姜冠宇) for posting a composite picture showing Han hugging his daughter and an infant with herpes rashes, Wang said.
Chiang did not ask for his permission to use the picture of his daughter and his post has led to many verbal attacks, Wang said.
In response, Chiang said that the father might have overreacted and both pictures had been published by media.
The post was made for the sole purpose of educating the public about risks of infections for infants when they make contact with people outside their home, he said, adding that the post included links to related articles.
Since Sunday evening, he has been harassed by numerous telephone calls from unidentified numbers, he said.
If necessary, he would talk to a lawyer and consider taking legal action, he added.
Additional reporting by Chen Hsin-yu and Lin Hui-chin
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