President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) has filed a defamation lawsuit against National Taiwan University professor emeritus Ho De-fen (賀德芬) and University of North Carolina at Charlotte Belk College of Business professor Hwan C. Lin (林環牆), the Presidential Office said yesterday.
Ho on Thursday last week accused Tsai of forging her diploma and falsely stating that she obtained her doctorate from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 1984, citing what she said was an independent investigation by Lin, but not detailing its results.
The accusations are untrue, damaged the president’s reputation and undermined her credibility, the office said yesterday.
Photo: Huang Yao-cheng, Taipei Times
Lawyers Lien Yuan-lung (連元龍) and Chang Jen-chih (張人志), representing Tsai, provided documents to the Taipei District Court from numerous sources confirming the veracity of Tsai’s dissertation and doctoral degree.
Upon request by the Presidential Office, the LSE provided a copy of Tsai’s dissertation, titled “Unfair Trade Practices and Safeguard Actions”; a copy of an official notice, dated February 1984, sent to Tsai informing her that she had passed her oral defense of the dissertation; and a photocopy of Tsai’s diploma, dated March 1984, it said.
The copy of Tsai’s dissertation sent by the LSE also contained the names of both of her thesis advisers, surnamed Lazar and Elliot, it said.
The credentials sent by the LSE matched those archived in the Ministry of Education and the Presidential Office, it added.
The office said that it had contacted National Chengchi University, where Tsai landed her first job after returning to Taiwan, and received confirmation that it has three copies of Tsai’s dissertation.
This proves that Tsai completed her doctoral studies and dissertation in 1984, it said.
Tsai was only a returning academic in 1984 and held no post in the government or the Democratic Progressive Party, so there is no reason for any government agency or university to “help cover” for her in 1984, it added.
As president, Tsai must maintain social credibility, the office said, adding that such baseless accusations have crossed the line.
As Ho has requested that the judiciary become involved, legal action has been taken, the office said, adding that it hoped the results would quell such “absurd and meaningless questions.”
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
Residents have called on the Taipei City Government to reconsider its plan to demolish a four-decades-old pedestrian overpass near Daan Forest Park. The 42-year-old concrete and steel structure that serves as an elevated walkway over the intersection of Heping and Xinsheng roads is to be closed on Tuesday in preparation for demolition slated for completion by the end of the month. However, in recent days some local residents have been protesting the planned destruction of the intersection overpass that is rendered more poetically as “sky bridge” in Chinese. “This bridge carries the community’s collective memory,” said a man surnamed Chuang
FATALITIES: The storm claimed at least two lives — a female passenger in a truck that was struck by a falling tree and a man who was hit by a utility pole Workers cleared fallen trees and shop owners swept up debris yesterday after one of the biggest typhoons to hit the nation in decades claimed at least two lives. Typhoon Kong-rey was packing winds of 184kph when it slammed into eastern Taiwan on Thursday, uprooting trees, triggering floods and landslides, and knocking out power as it swept across the nation. A 56-year-old female foreign national died from her injuries after the small truck she was in was struck by a falling tree on Provincial Highway 14A early on Thursday. The second death was reported at 8pm in Taipei on Thursday after a 48-year-old man
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm earlier today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, in this year's Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am, the CWA said. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻) with a 100km radius, it said. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA meteorologist Huang En-hung (黃恩宏) said. However, a more accurate forecast would be made on Wednesday, when Yinxing is
RSS