Taipei councilor indicted for alleged election law violations

Taipei, Aug. 21 (CNA) Taipei prosecutors on Friday indicted New Party Taipei City Councilor Hou Han-ting (侯漢廷) for allegedly violating election laws by publicly disclosing information without verification during the 2024 presidential and Legislative Yuan election campaign.

According to the indictment, while campaigning for a seat in the Legislature, Hou held a press conference on Jan. 10 that year, where he presented a document that he claimed was issued by the Democratic Progressive Party's (DPP) central policy committee.

The document allegedly instructed government agencies and the media to support the DPP's election campaign through tactics including portraying opponents as pro-China and stoking fears of national collapse, prosecutors said. It also bore the name of then-DPP Secretary-General Hsu Li-ming (許立明), marked as having been "approved."

Taipei prosecutors said they received a complaint accusing Hou of falsely alleging that the DPP had used government agencies and certain media outlets to aid its election campaign, as well as taxpayers' money to spread a predetermined narrative and influence voters.

The complaint alleged that Hou's actions affected the integrity of the voting process, the prosecutors added.

During the investigation, Hou said he obtained the document from former Legislator Chiu Yi (邱毅). Chiu later told prosecutors that the document had been circulated among political commentators and contained wording not commonly used in Taiwan, which led him to suspect it was fake. Chiu also said he had warned Hou about it.

The city councilor also claimed that he asked former Legislator Kuo Jeng-liang (郭正亮) about the authenticity of the document. However, prosecutors found that their LINE messages were exchanged after the 2024 press conference, with Hou even writing, "I was lucky to get it first and expose it."

Prosecutors said this showed that Hou had not verified the document with Kuo before making it public.

Prosecutors later contacted the DPP to verify the authenticity of the document, and the party said it has only a "Policy Committee" and has never had an "election campaign strategy group" or any similar body.

Prosecutors also found numerous typos and simplified Chinese characters inconsistent with Taiwanese political documents and concluded that the document was forged.

However, no information was provided on where the alleged forged document originated.

Prosecutors said Hou, a three-term Taipei councilor who was running for a seat in the Legislature, deliberately failed to verify the document before making it public, with the intention of hurting candidates running against him.

As a result, Hou was indicted under the Presidential and Vice Presidential Election and Recall Act.

In response, Hou said that while he respects the judicial process following his indictment on Friday, he will firmly maintain his innocence and plead not guilty.