Former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) yesterday issued an ultimatum to The Journalist (新新聞), demanding that the news weekly print an apology in four Chinese-language newspapers within five days for wrongfully accusing her of spreading rumors about an alleged extra-marital affair between then president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and his interpreter.
Lu said she has been waiting for The Journalist to apologize since the Supreme Court ruled in her favor in April 2004.
"I don't want to wait any longer," she told a press conference. "Appeasement only breeds villains. I am left with no choice but to respect the law."
The court ordered The Journalist to clarify and admit that Lu did not call then editor-in-chief Yang Chao (楊照) to spread a rumor that Chen was having an affair with his then interpreter Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴). The court ordered Yang to publish a clarification on the front pages of Taiwan＊s major newspapers as well as broadcast it on the radio and TV for three days.
The dispute between The Journalist and Lu erupted in November 2000. Lu filed a civil suit on Dec. 21, 2000, demanding a formal apology from the magazine, saying the story had injured her reputation. The weekly has refused to offer an apology as per the court's orders. It requested a constitutional interpretation over Civil Code Article 195, which states that "one whose reputation is violated can request for appropriate punishment that's equivalent to reputation recovery."
The Council of Grand Justices last Friday ruled the article was not unconstitutional. Lu said she did not want any monetary compensation from the magazine. She declined to comment on whether she would accept a private apology from the magazine.
When asked what would be the next step if the magazine still ignored Lu's request, Lu's legal adviser Hong Guey-san said they would request an injunction so the court would ask the magazine to comply within a certain period of time. If the magazine still defied the court order, they would publish the apology on the magazine's behalf and seek payment from the weekly.
Chou Tien-rey (周天瑞), president of The Journalist, yesterday declined to comment.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
BITTERLY COLD: The inauguration ceremony for US president-elect Donald Trump has been moved indoors due to cold weather, with the new venue lacking capacity A delegation of cross-party lawmakers from Taiwan, led by Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜), for the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump, would not be able to attend the ceremony, as it is being moved indoors due to forecasts of intense cold weather in Washington tomorrow. The inauguration ceremony for Trump and US vice president-elect JD Vance is to be held inside the Capitol Rotunda, which has a capacity of about 2,000 people. A person familiar with the issue yesterday said although the outdoor inauguration ceremony has been relocated, Taiwan’s legislative delegation has decided to head off to Washington as scheduled. The delegation
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
RSS