The Taichung District Court yesterday granted the Taichung District Prosecutors’ Office’s request to detain a reporter for allegedly taking a directive from the Chinese Communist Party’s Fujian Provincial Committee to disseminate fake polls aimed at misleading voters ahead of the presidential and legislative elections next month.
Prosecutors on Thursday raided eight properties and seized mobile phones, computers and documents relating to fake polls. Reporter Lin Hsien-yuan (林獻元) and Taichung-based Tunghai University professor Su Yuan-hwa (蘇雲華) were taken in for questioning along with seven witnesses.
While the court agreed to detain Lin, it rejected a request to detain Su. Prosecutors said they would appeal the decision.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
Lin in October was allegedly instructed by the committee to work with Su to make up poll results and produce graphics before disseminating the fake polls as news reports on the fingermedia.com and yuanfengmedia.tw Web sites.
The news reports said the poll results had shown that the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) presidential ticket was leading the Democratic Progressive Party’s presidential ticket by a small margin and the Taiwan People’s Party by a large margin.
The dissemination of fake opinion polls misleads voters and endangers the nation’s sovereignty and democracy, prosecutors said, accusing Lin and Su of contravening the Anti-infiltration Act (反滲透法).
Separately, the Kaohsiung District Court yesterday granted prosecutors’ request to detain a Chinese immigrant incommunicado on suspicion of leading dozens of people on a trip to China to attend events that promoted “united front” tactics and telling them to support certain political parties.
The suspect, 49-year-old Tsai Zhan-ping (蔡占萍), moved to Taiwan 20 years ago from China’s Jiangsu Province after marrying a Taiwanese and last year she was named by the National Immigration Agency as winner of the eighth “Dream Building Project for New Residents and their Children” award for her dedication to caring for her hearing-impaired son.
As Tsai was uncooperative during questioning on Thursday, prosecutors said they believe she posed a collusion or flight risk and applied with a court for her to be detained incommunicado.
The other 16 suspects and witnesses in the case were released, prosecutors said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
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