A former Toronto-based Government Information Office director has been ordered to serve a sentence or pay a fine after a court yesterday found him guilty of defaming a professor and a media personality in an online posting.
National Taiwan University professor Chen Shih-meng (陳師孟) and political commentator Chin Heng-wei (金恆煒) sued Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英) for defamation after the former official, using the pseudonym Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽), criticized them in an article he submitted to a popular commentary Web site in 2008.
In the article, Kuo likened Chen and Chin to “official violent dogs for Taiwanese independence” and said they “used violence to oppress the weak.”
The Taiwan High Court ordered Kuo to pay NT$50,000 in damages or serve a 50-day jail term for defaming the two. The ruling is final.
This was not the first time that Kuo’s comments landed him in hot water.
He was stripped of his civil servant status in March last year in the wake of a controversy over articles he wrote under his pen name defaming Taiwan and referring to Taiwanese as “rednecks.”
Kuo, who referred to himself as a “high-class Mainlander,” had written that “[China] should spend many years suppressing [people in Taiwan] instead of granting [them] any political freedom once they have taken Taiwan by force,” in addition to calling Taiwan a “ghost island.”
Kuo has said in his defense that his comments fell under the realm of freedom of speech and that his rights should be protected under the Constitution.
He said his comments reflected political realities and would hold up to a truth test.
In handing down the sentence, however, the judge said Kuo mistakenly took his own experiences as fact and posted the exaggerated comments on an open Web site where they damaged the reputations of Chen and Chin.
The judge added that as a government official at the time, Kuo should have been more careful in making comments and that he had a responsibility to ensure the veracity of his information.
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
A man in Tainan has been cleared on charges of public insult after giving the middle finger during a road rage incident, as judges deemed the gesture was made “briefly to express negative feelings.” In last week’s ruling at the High Court’s Tainan branch, judges acquitted a driver, surnamed Cheng (程), for an incident along Tainan’s Nanmen Road in September 2023, when Cheng had spotted a place to park his car in an adjacent lane. Cheng slowed down his vehicle to go into reverse, to back into the parking spot, but the car behind followed too closely, as its driver thought Cheng
CAUTION: Based on intelligence from the nation’s security agencies, MOFA has cautioned Taiwanese travelers about heightened safety risks in China-friendly countries The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday urged Taiwanese to be aware of their safety when traveling abroad, especially in countries that are friendly to China. China in June last year issued 22 guidelines that allow its courts to try in absentia and sentence to death so-called “diehard” Taiwanese independence activists, even though Chinese courts have no jurisdiction in Taiwan. Late last month, a senior Chinese official gave closed-door instructions to state security units to implement the guidelines in countries friendly to China, a government memo and a senior Taiwan security official said, based on information gathered by Taiwan’s intelligence agency. The
President William Lai (賴清德) should protect Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), and stop supporting domestic strife and discord, former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) wrote on Facebook yesterday. US President Donald Trump and TSMC on Monday jointly announced that the company would invest an additional US$100 billion over the next few years to expand its semiconductor manufacturing operations in the US. The TSMC plans have promoted concern in Taiwan that it would effectively lead to the chipmaking giant becoming Americanized. The Lai administration lacks tangible policies to address concerns that Taiwan might follow in Ukraine’s footsteps, Ma wrote. Instead, it seems to think it could
RSS