The National Police Agency (NPA) has sent the Executive Yuan draft legislation seeking to raise the penalties for stalking and harassment, and give police the power to intervene faster after a complaint has been filed.
A surge in violent assaults by stalkers in the past few years has shown that new legal tools are needed to confront the problem, NPA officials said Saturday.
Many of the perpetrators are former boyfriends or girlfriends who stalk and harass former lovers who terminated the relationship or people who were not interested in them, the officials said.
At present, the law, including the Domestic Violence Prevention Act (家庭暴力防治法), cannot adequately protect the victims of such crimes, for unless there is actual physical assault by the stalker or bodily contact, they can escape with just a light fine, the officials added.
One such case was a male student at Shih Hsin University in Taipei, surnamed Chen (陳), who had had a crush on a female student surnamed Shih (石) ever since she was a first-year high school student and had stalked her for years, they said.
Although Shih in early November 2017 had reported his behavior to a police station in New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) and asked police to stop him, Chen attacked her in a university hallway on Dec. 11, 2017, slashing her neck and shoulder with a small fruit knife. Shih was not seriously injured.
Another case cited by the NPA officials was that of a Changhua County senior-high school student surnamed Wu (吳), who attacked a student at another high school with a knife because she had rejected him when they were in junior-high school together.
The victim in that case also survived, but not everyone has been so lucky, the officials said.
Under the proposed legislation, a suspect could be investigated for stalking, making threats, physical or verbal harassment, and if the evidence supports the allegations, they could be punished for contravening the Sexual Harassment Prevention Act (性騷擾防治法), the Gender Equity Education Act (性別平等教育法) or the Act of Gender Equality in Employment (性別工作平等法).
If the offender commits a similar violation within a year of repeated harassment, uttering threats, forcible confinement, assault or other actions deemed to cause the victim fear and affects their normal life, then they would be deemed to have committed the crime of “stalking and harassment” under the proposed bill.
The bill would permit police to intervene in cases where the victim’s well-being or life appears to be under threat by directly visiting the alleged perpetrator to warn them, or in cases of an emergency, they could take action to secure potential evidence, check identities and search background records.
If the proposal becomes law, police officers would be authorized to apply for restraining orders from a court, while a victim who has filed a judicial complaint, and is faced with continued stalking and harassment while their case is under investigation or within two years of a convicted offender serving their sentence, can apply directly for a restraining order.
Restraining orders could prohibit harassment, body contact, stalking, personal communications, conversing on telephones or digital devices, as well as bar the disseminating or disclosure of personal information or images, or the use of demeaning and discriminatory remarks, under the proposal.
The bill would also bar stalkers from being near “the workplace, and specific sites frequented by the victim” and forbid them from acting in a way that would violate the victim’s personal safety.
The draft calls for a maximum prison sentence of three years and a maximum fine of NT$300,000 — with an additional punishment of 1.5 times the initial term if an offender has violated a restraining order.
It also proposes authorizing the court, prosecutors or the police to place a suspect or offender under mandatory medical or psychiatric treatment, based on the offender’s mental or physical conditions.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS