New Power Party Keelung City Councilor Chen Wei-chung (陳薇仲) has filed a police report and a criminal complaint alleging online harassment on Facebook, she said on Saturday.
After reposting an article about the budget for a city exposition on Facebook, a commenter wrote that she was “unconstructive,” “lazy,” “eye candy” and a “fucking gay city councilor” who “gains from corruption,” Chen said.
She filed the report with the police for public insult and defamation hoping it would teach people who comment online to discuss public issues and not insult other people’s body or gender, she said.
Cyberbullying often occurs during election season, when she has received threats such as “you better be careful what you say,” comments about her gender, calling her “eye candy” or “bar girl,” and other sexual harassment, she said, adding that she was used to it.
However, in this instance Chen filed a complaint because she does not want to see the quality of public discourse devolve into insults about a person’s age, gender or sexual orientation, she said.
For far too long, young, female politicians have often been looked down upon as “incapable” or “just a pretty face,” she said, adding that she hopes this legal action could increase sensitivity toward gender and respect for others in public discussions.
Being an advocate of LGBT issues and marriage equality, Chen said that she does not want to see people use the term “gay” as an insult, which is disrespectful to the LGBT community.
She hopes that Keelung residents would focus more on the duties of city councilors, such as their policy proposals, their actions in office and performance as public officials, so it was regrettable to see insulting comments while she was making suggestions on a budget issue, she said.
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