Authorities have detained 40 people on charges of interfering with voting rights, the Ministry of Justice said yesterday, adding that nine are suspected of helping a foreign power to meddle in next month’s presidential and legislative elections.
The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office launched an investigation amid a sweep targeting election fraud across the nation, Department of Prosecutorial Affairs official Kuo Yung-fa (郭永發) told a Cabinet meeting in Taipei.
The ministry conducted the operation in collaboration with the Central Election Commission and the Ministry of the Interior, Kuo said.
Photo: CNA
As of Tuesday, prosecutors had issued 15 indictments for alleged election interference and 17 for alleged contraventions of the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), with nine people named as suspects, a justice ministry report showed.
The indictments might be linked to reports that Beijing organized trips to China for local officials.
Other indictments were issued in two cases of alleged vote-buying, two cases of election-related disinformation, 37 cases of illicit foreign campaign financing and eight cases of gambling on vote outcomes, the report said, adding that NT$27.5 million (US$877,753) had been confiscated in the gambling cases.
Prosecutors have also detained 35 people and confiscated NT$2.35 million and a NT$3.5 million car in an alleged case of cash for petition signatures, the report said.
The act forbids conducting electoral activities on behalf of a hostile foreign power, Deputy Minister of Justice Huang Mou-hsin (黃謀信) told a news conference following the Cabinet meeting.
The law also mandates enhanced sentencing for breaking election laws if they are for a foreign power, Huang said.
In other news, a report by cyberintelligence company Graphika said that an online public opinion manipulation scheme favored the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT).
Graphika said in the report published yesterday that it detected “a sustained and coordinated effort to manipulate online conversations about Taiwanese politics” that began as early as May last year.
The team did not attribute the campaign to a specific actor, but the tactics, techniques and procedures used were characteristic of an online influence operation, it said.
The operation used more than 800 Facebook accounts, 13 Facebook groups, one YouTube channel and one TikTok account to spread political memes and videos targeting the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) presidential candidate, Vice President William Lai (賴清德), and others, it said.
The operation revolved around material generated by an online persona called “Agitate Taiwan” (鼓動台灣) on TikTok and a now-defunct YouTube channel, it said.
The inauthentic accounts used stolen or digitally manipulated images in their profiles, generated content with nearly the same timestamp, it said, adding that metadata showed their TikTok links were generated during a single browser session.
Additionally, several of the Facebook accounts posted check-ins at identical coordinates in Taichung, Graphika said.
The operation generated and amplified content that focused on debunked allegations that children were drugged at a kindergarten, reports of egg shortages and compaints about Medigen’s COVID-19 vaccines in a bid to depict the DPP as corrupt or incompetent, it said.
However, authentic engagement with the content was scant, it added.
Additional reporting by Chung Li-hua
ONE LAST TALK: While Xi said that Taiwan was a ‘red line,’ Biden, in what is likely his last meeting with Xi as president, called for an end to China’s military activity around Taiwan China’s military intimidation and economic coercion against Taiwan are the main causes of tensions that are destabilizing peace in the Taiwan Strait, Taipei said yesterday while thanking US President Joe Biden for expressing Washington’s firm stance of maintaining peace and stability in the region. Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met on Saturday for their third meeting and their first talks in seven months on the sidelines of the APEC forum in Lima, Peru. It was likely Biden’s last meeting as president with Xi. During their conversation, Biden reiterated the US’ opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” from either
Taiwan would participate in the 2026 APEC summit to be hosted by China after Beijing promised it would ensure the personal safety of attendees, Taiwanese national security sources said yesterday. The APEC Leaders’ Machu Picchu Declaration announced yesterday said that China would host the APEC summit in 2026. Beijing proposed hosting the summit shortly before this year’s gathering began on Friday, a national security official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Many APEC members expressed concerns about China hosting the event and said that prior communication over the decision was insufficient, the official said. Taiwan brought up concerns about legal “guidelines” China announced in
SUPPORT: Arms sales to NATO Plus countries such as Japan, South Korea and Israel only have to be approved by the US Congress if they exceed US$25m The US should amend a law to add Taiwan to the list of “NATO Plus” allies and streamline future arms sales, a US commission said on Tuesday in its annual report to the US Congress. The recommendation was made in the annual report by the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), which contained chapters on US-China economic and trade ties, security relations, and Taiwan and Hong Kong. In the chapter on Taiwan, the commission urged the US Congress to “amend the Arms Export Control Act of 1976 to include Taiwan on the list of ‘NATO Plus’ recipients,” referring to
MEET AND GREET: The White House, which called the interaction ‘just a handshake,’ did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Biden planned to visit Taiwan’s envoy to the APEC summit, Lin Hsin-i (林信義), on Friday invited US President Joe Biden to visit Taiwan. During the APEC Leaders’ Informal Dialogue, Lin, who represented President William Lai (賴清德) at the summit, spoke with Biden and expressed gratitude to the outgoing US president for his contribution to improving bilateral ties between Taipei and Washington over the past four years, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. Lin and Biden exchanged views during the conversation, with Lin extending an invitation to Biden to visit Taiwan, it said. Biden is to step down in January next year, when US president-elect Donald Trump is
RSS