Lawmakers yesterday passed an amendment to the Social Order Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法) to allow penalties against people who abuse emergency hotlines.
The amendment says that people who call police hotlines without a legitimate reason and persist in doing so after receiving a warning may be detained for up to three days or fined up to NT$12,000.
The amendment covers the 110 emergency hotline as well as the hotlines used by each police precinct across the nation.
Before the amendment was passed, there were no regulations to deal with callers who deliberately misuse police hotlines, lawmakers said.
With the introduction of the penalties, it is hoped that a waste of police resources will be prevented, said Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Lo Chih-cheng (羅致政), People First Party Legislator Chen Yi-chieh (陳怡潔) and other lawmakers who proposed the bill.
During the preliminary review of the bill, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chiu Chang-yueh (邱昌嶽) suggested that the penalty be applied in cases where a caller abuses a police hotline and “obstructs an officer from carrying out their duties.”
However, Lo said that the phrase “obstructs an officer from carrying out their duties,” would have placed a burden of proof on the police, so it was replaced in the final version with a clause about callers who disregard warnings.
A magnitude 5.7 earthquake struck off Taitung County at 1:09pm today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 53km northeast of Taitung County Hall at a depth of 12.5km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Taitung County and Hualien County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Nantou County, Chiayi County, Yunlin County, Kaohsiung and Tainan, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of damage following the quake.
A Taiwanese woman on Sunday was injured by a small piece of masonry that fell from the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican during a visit to the church. The tourist, identified as Hsu Yun-chen (許芸禎), was struck on the forehead while she and her tour group were near Michelangelo’s sculpture Pieta. Hsu was rushed to a hospital, the group’s guide to the church, Fu Jing, said yesterday. Hsu was found not to have serious injuries and was able to continue her tour as scheduled, Fu added. Mathew Lee (李世明), Taiwan’s recently retired ambassador to the Holy See, said he met
A BETRAYAL? It is none of the ministry’s business if those entertainers love China, but ‘you cannot agree to wipe out your own country,’ the MAC minister said Taiwanese entertainers in China would have their Taiwanese citizenship revoked if they are holding Chinese citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said. Several Taiwanese entertainers, including Patty Hou (侯佩岑) and Ouyang Nana (歐陽娜娜), earlier this month on their Weibo (微博) accounts shared a picture saying that Taiwan would be “returned” to China, with tags such as “Taiwan, Province of China” or “Adhere to the ‘one China’ principle.” The MAC would investigate whether those Taiwanese entertainers have Chinese IDs and added that it would revoke their Taiwanese citizenship if they did, Chiu told the Chinese-language Liberty Times (sister paper
The Chinese wife of a Taiwanese, surnamed Liu (劉), who openly advocated for China’s use of force against Taiwan, would be forcibly deported according to the law if she has not left Taiwan by Friday, National Immigration Agency (NIA) officials said yesterday. Liu, an influencer better known by her online channel name Yaya in Taiwan (亞亞在台灣), obtained permanent residency via marriage to a Taiwanese. She has been reported for allegedly repeatedly espousing pro-unification comments on her YouTube and TikTok channels, including comments supporting China’s unification with Taiwan by force and the Chinese government’s stance that “Taiwan is an inseparable part of China.” Liu
RSS