The Executive Yuan needs to refine its draft anti-stalking act to broaden the range of pestering behavior covered and shorten the specified time frame for police investigations into complaints, women’s rights groups said yesterday.
While they support the idea of the bill, they said its current version would not provide enough protection to people who are being harassed or stalked.
Lawmakers on the legislature’s Internal Administration and Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene committees yesterday questioned Ministry of the Interior officials over the draft approved by the Executive Yuan.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
The draft defines “pestering behavior” as a person’s actions toward others, be it a specific individual or their families, spouses or those have close relations with them, out of “admiration, affection or resentment” cause the focus of the attention to feel disgusted or fearful.
The draft act lists seven types of pestering behavior: spying; stalking; repeatedly making telephone calls or sending messages to a person on a withheld number; persistently requesting dates; sending or exhibiting messages, images, sound, videos or other things to a person; menacing a person by showing things that could hurt their reputation; or using contact information to purchase unsolicited and unwanted items for a person.
If someone is being stalked by a stranger, they can hardly know and therefore prove the stalker’s motivation, Awakening Foundation director of development Lin Shiou-yi (林秀怡) told a news conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei.
Once a person files a complaint with police, the police are required to spend three months investigating the allegations, which is both time consuming and fails to provide a victim with timely protection, Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation deputy chief executive Jasmine Bai (白智芳) said.
Police should finish a preliminary investigation into a complaint within 72 hours, and if the allegations are confirmed, they should issue a 10-day protection order that forbids a harasser from pestering the complainant during that time, she said.
However, Deputy Minister of the Interior Chiu Chang-yueh (邱昌嶽) told lawmakers during yesterday’s committee session that victims would not need to verify their harasser’s motivation before contacting police, because the police would start probing a case as soon as they received a victim’s complaint.
Police would first give a warning to the alleged harasser, and if the harasser is found to be pestering the complainant again within two years, police would ask the court for a protection order for the victim, he said.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alicia Wang (王育敏) urged the ministry to allow police to issue a 10-day protection order to curb alleged harassers.
However, Chiu said that the suggestion could face legal issues and so it would need further consideration.
Several Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) officials including Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) are to be summoned for questioning and then transferred to prosecutors for holding an illegal assembly in Taipei last night, the Taipei Police said today. Chu and two others hosted an illegal assembly and are to be requested to explain their actions, the Taipei City Police Department's Zhongzheng (中正) First Precinct said, referring to a protest held after Huang Lu Chin-ju (黃呂錦茹), KMT Taipei's chapter director, and several other KMT staffers were questioned for alleged signature forgery in recall petitions against Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators. Taipei prosecutors had filed
Taiwan would welcome the return of Honduras as a diplomatic ally if its next president decides to make such a move, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) said yesterday. “Of course, we would welcome Honduras if they want to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan after their elections,” Lin said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, when asked to comment on statements made by two of the three Honduran presidential candidates during the presidential campaign in the Central American country. Taiwan is paying close attention to the region as a whole in the wake of a
President William Lai (賴清德) has appointed former vice president Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) to attend the late Pope Francis’ funeral at the Vatican City on Saturday on his behalf, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today. The Holy See announced Francis’ funeral would take place on Saturday at 10am in St Peter’s Square. The ministry expressed condolences over Francis’ passing and said that Chen would represent Taiwan at the funeral and offer condolences in person. Taiwan and the Vatican have a long-standing and close diplomatic relationship, the ministry said. Both sides agreed to have Chen represent Taiwan at the funeral, given his Catholic identity and
Lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) yesterday established a friendship group with their counterparts in Ukraine to promote parliamentary exchanges between the two countries. A ceremony in Taipei for the Taiwan-Ukraine Parliamentary Friendship Association, initiated by DPP Legislator Chen Kuan-ting (陳冠廷), was attended by lawmakers and officials, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Francois Wu (吳志中) and European Economic and Trade Office in Taiwan Director Lutz Gullner. The increasingly dire situation in Ukraine is a global concern, and Taiwan cannot turn its back when the latter is in need of help, as the two countries share many common values and interests,
RSS