The Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) yesterday reported the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and KMT Chairman Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) to prosecutors and accused them of forgery and breaching the Referendum Act (公民投票法) after the Central Election Commission on Thursday said that 1 percent of the signatures that the KMT submitted for three referendum proposals belonged to dead people.
Forging signatures for referendum petitions is a crime under Article 211 of the Criminal Code and Article 35 of the Referendum Act, TSU spokesman Yeh Chih-yuan (葉智遠) told a news conference outside the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday.
He urged prosecutors to investigate the accusations and called on the commission to reject the three referendum proposals in accordance with Article 13 of the act.
The KMT on Monday last week presented the commission with 1,456,966 signatures for three referendum drives launched by its members.
The proposals ask whether voters agree to phase out fossil fuel power plants, halt the construction of a coal power plant in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳) and maintain a ban on food products from five Japanese prefectures imposed after the 2011 Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster.
The commission on Thursday said that some of the signatures that the KMT collected for the proposals were forged, as many appeared to be in the same handwriting and written with the same pen.
One percent of the apparent signatories had passed away before the proposals were launched, it said.
When asked about the “dead signatories” on Friday, Wu said it was “difficult to avoid,” adding that the commission could just remove those forms.
“We want to tell Wu that dead people cannot sign a petition and how ridiculous that was. Please show some respect for people who have passed away and do not use them to fabricate lies,” said Yeh, who is running for Taipei city councilor in the Songshan (松山) and Xinyi (信義) constituencies.
If Wu still has a conscience, he should admit forgery and the court could still give him a chance to start over, Yeh added.
“Considering the amount of signatures the KMT collected, you would expect to have seen them collecting signatures on every street, but they have remained mostly unnoticed until they suddenly managed to deliver such an amount of signatures,” TSU social campaign department head Ouyang Jui-lien (歐陽瑞蓮) said.
“We are wondering where all those signatures came from,” she said. “Did Chairman Wu make ghosts sign the petitions by offering incense during Ghost Month?”
Under the Referendum Act, anyone who makes others launch, relinquish, sign or vote on a referendum proposal through coercion, intimidation or other illicit means can be sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS