Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (
Social critic Cheng Tsun-chi (
Taipei District Prosecutors' Office Spokesman Lin Jinn-tsun (林錦村) yesterday said that Cheng and Hung, during the course of a television talk show hosted by Broadcasting Corporation of China (BCC) chairman Jaw Shao-kong (趙少康) and broadcast last September, defamed Yu by calling him a dog.
On the TV talk show Cheng said "You [Yu] are ungrateful. I call you a dog because I want [President] Chen Shui-bian (
Hung then said that Yu was the most loyal dog she had ever seen.
Hung responded to yesterday's indictment by saying that she respected the prosecutors' decision.
A number of legislators across party lines and TV talk show political commentators have faced slander lawsuits recently for their acrimonious comments on a number of TV talk shows.
Former Chinese Unity Promotion Party chairman Lin Cheng-chieh (林正杰) -- a democracy activist-turned pro-unification commentator -- was sentenced to fifty days in jail last December by the Taipei District Court for slapping and kicking Contemporary Monthly magazine editor Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) during a TV debate last August on whether the president should resign over corruption allegations.
On Thursday, Taipei judges also fined President Chen Shui-bian (
The president accused Soong of secretly meeting with Chinese officials in the US, but provided no evidence to support the claim.
Judges fined Chen NT$3 million (US$90,900), and required him to print advertisements apoligizing to Soong in three major Chinese-language dailies. Soong had originally asked for NT$50 million in compensation.
Slander and libel lawsuits are a regular feature of the nation's politics.
Most major politicians have at one time been involved in such suits, either as the victim or the defendant.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
The Chinese military has boosted its capability to fight at a high tempo using the element of surprise and new technology, the Ministry of National Defense said in the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) published on Monday last week. The ministry highlighted Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) developments showing significant changes in Beijing’s strategy for war on Taiwan. The PLA has made significant headway in building capabilities for all-weather, multi-domain intelligence, surveillance, operational control and a joint air-sea blockade against Taiwan’s lines of communication, it said. The PLA has also improved its capabilities in direct amphibious assault operations aimed at seizing strategically important beaches,
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