The Supreme Prosecutors’ Office on Wednesday established a task force to combat bribery and election-related violence, which is to take special note of new methods of paying bribes, such as cryptocurrencies and mobile payments.
The November local elections would be a challenge for the judiciary, especially in three areas — bribery, fake news and possible foreign intervention — Minister of Justice Tsai Ching-hsiang (蔡清祥) said at the establishment ceremony.
Local prosecutors’ offices have established temporary command centers to provide technical support when investigating election cases, Tsai said, exhorting the task force to stop at nothing to prosecute any person seeking to sway an election through wealth or violence.
Photo: CNA
Law enforcement officers and the judiciary should also take note of new methods of payment, such as cryptocurrencies and mobile payment systems, which could replace traditional ways of paying bribes, he said.
The judiciary should closely monitor any abnormal payments to election candidates or their heelers via the ministry’s Financial Intelligence Unit, he added.
The judiciary must also pay attention to whether an election has been swayed by fake news and, in the instance of confirmed fake news, the judiciary must act swiftly to debunk the claims as soon as possible, Tsai said.
Talking about anti-bribery measures is still a useful ploy and adequate use of the Internet to disseminate the message would also help convince young people to call out any acts of vote-buying, Prosecutor General Hsing Tai-chao (邢泰釗) said.
The central government plans to create and distribute anti-bribery videos to local prosecutors’ offices, airports and railway stations, he said.
Anti-bribery efforts and measures to prevent coercion by force would continue as usual, but prosecutorial units would prioritize the prosecution of cases involving fake information, Hsing said.
He added that he would ask local prosecutors’ offices to task prosecutors with looking into cases of suspected foreign invention, while stepping up police sweeps of underground currency exchanges and betting pools.
Hsing also mentioned cryptocurrency, online game credits and other things with monetary value that could be used to bribe voters as something to look out for.
The judiciary would be looking very closely at whether the source of payments come from foreign sources and prosecute those involved for contravening the Anti-Infiltration Act (反滲透法), Hsing said.
A magnitude 4.9 earthquake struck off Tainan at 11:47am today, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The hypocenter was 32.3km northeast of Tainan City Hall at a depth of 7.3km, CWA data showed. The intensity of the quake, which gauges the actual effect of a seismic event, measured 4 in Tainan and Chiayi County on Taiwan's seven-tier intensity scale, the data showed. The quake had an intensity of 3 in Chiayi City and County, and Yunlin County, while it was measured as 2 in Kaohsiung, Nantou County, Changhua County, Taitung County and offshore Penghu County, the data showed. There were no immediate reports of
Weather conditions across Taiwan are expected to remain stable today, but cloudy to rainy skies are expected from tomorrow onward due to increasing moisture in the atmosphere, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). Daytime highs today are expected to hit 25-27°C in western Taiwan and 22-24°C in the eastern counties of Yilan, Hualien, and Taitung, data on the CWA website indicated. After sunset, temperatures could drop to 16-17°C in most parts of Taiwan. For tomorrow, precipitation is likely in northern Taiwan as a cloud system moves in from China. Daytime temperatures are expected to hover around 25°C, the CWA said. Starting Monday, areas
Taiwan has recorded its first fatal case of Coxsackie B5 enterovirus in 10 years after a one-year-old boy from southern Taiwan died from complications early last month, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. CDC spokesman Lo Yi-chun (羅一鈞) told a news conference that the child initially developed a fever and respiratory symptoms before experiencing seizures and loss of consciousness. The boy was diagnosed with acute encephalitis and admitted to intensive care, but his condition deteriorated rapidly, and he passed away on the sixth day of illness, Lo said. This also marks Taiwan’s third enterovirus-related death this year and the first severe
A Taiwanese software developer has created a generative artificial intelligence (AI) model to help people use AI without exposing sensitive data, project head Huang Chung-hsiao (黃崇校) said yesterday. Huang, a 55-year-old coder leading a US-based team, said that concerns over data privacy and security in popular generative AIs such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek motivated him to develop a personal AI assistant named “Mei.” One of the biggest security flaws with cloud-based algorithms is that users are required to hand over personal information to access the service, giving developers the opportunity to mine user data, he said. For this reason, many government agencies and
RSS