Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) officials yesterday urged the convener of the March 19 Shooting Truth Investigation Special Committee Shih Chi-yang (
The DPP officials said such commentary only exposed the essence of the committee, which was contempt for the law.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
In a news conference held after the DPP's weekly Central Standing Committee, the officials showed video footage from two call-in TV shows aired Monday night in which committee member Yeh Yao-peng (
"Yeh's behavior gave the game away. The investigative committee is simply a means for the pan-blue camp to denigrate the president," DPP Deputy Secretary-General Chung Chia-pin (鍾佳濱) said.
"We strongly suspected that the pan-blue camp wanted to use this committee to overturn the results of the presidential election in case it loses the election lawsuit that will be judged soon," Chung said.
Chung said committee members are supposed to obey a gag order, but Yeh has been talking about his theories on shootings ever since March 20 and has continued to do so despite being chosen as a committee member.
Chung asked Shin to make it clear to the committee members that they cannot comment on the case.
"Otherwise, people will quickly perceive the illegitimacy of this organization," Chung said.
According to Chung, Vice President Annette Lu (
In related news, Chung said DPP headquarters would not get involved in the debate over whether the party should expel former Examination Yuan member Tsai Wen-pin (
Chung said that the party branch in Tainan City will handle the case.
"But it is obvious that Tsai diverges from the party's stance," Chung said.
Earlier in the day, the DPP launched four campaign teams for the December legislative elections.
The teams will be led by DPP Secretary-General Chang Chun-hsiung (張俊雄), Premier Yu Shyi-kun, Kaohsiung Mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) and Secretary-General of the Presidential Office Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) to help boost momentum for the campaign.
According to Chang, 108 campaign rallies will be held around the country, starting this Saturday and running through the middle of next month.
Each of the four campaign team leaders is responsible for hosting 27 rallies.
Chung said the DPP is quite optimistic about its election chances, based on its latest poll.
He said the pan-green camp has reached the "magic number" of 110 to 115 probable legislative seats, moving the DPP closer to its goal of dominating the Legislative Yuan.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test