A researcher at the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) think tank apologized online on Monday, after numerous women accused him of sexual harassment.
National Policy Foundation special associate researcher Albert Tzeng (曾柏文) on Facebook said he wanted to apologize “to any women who have been offended by my past indiscretions,” after two women publicly accused him of impropriety while he was an editor at Initium Media (端傳媒).
The case is only the latest in spate of accusations in recent days, which media have dubbed Taiwan’s #MeToo movement.
The allegations surfaced on Friday last week, when author Wu Hsiao-le (吳曉樂) posted on Facebook about an unnamed former editor who insisted on chatting alone in his car about his marital problems in a conversation that made her feel like she was “suffocating.”
In a followup post on Sunday, Wu said that five women messaged her to share their own experiences with the editor, who she publicly named as being Tzeng.
Later that day, Wu wrote that the number of women messaging her had now reached the double digits, some with stories of Tzeng using inappropriate hugging or other physical contact.
In a separate post, former Initium Media contributor Alison Zhao (趙思樂) said she was harassed by Tzeng and another senior media figure when she was in Taiwan to promote her book at the end of 2017.
Zhao said that Tzeng messaged her directly to apologize, which she accepted.
Tzeng on Monday wrote that he was “ashamed to think of the harm he may have caused others."
He said he heard such allegations against him in 2015, when he had a different understanding of sexual harassment.
However, Tzeng said he has since come to realize that chatting alone in a vehicle might be frightening, especially when with a superior, and since returning to Taichung in 2017 has tried to avoid being alone with women or commenting on their appearance.
In a statement on Sunday, the KMT said that Tzeng has cooperated on special projects with the think tank in the past, but has no cooperative relationship now.
The parties involved have also publicly accepted Tzeng’s apology, it said, adding that it respects their handling of the situation.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
RSS