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Reports of abuse of
Filipinos fabricated
SOCIAL DISORDER: A journalist and a Facebook
user face charges of disturbing public order by spreading rumors after two
stories they posted online proved to have been falsified
By Loa Iok-sin / Staff reporter
Shih Hsin University
Chinese-language newspaper Lih Pao is pictured.
Photo: Chen Yi-ching, Taipei Times
A woman surnamed Tung (董) and a journalist
surnamed Cheng (鄭) who had reported that they had personally witnessed incidents
in which restaurant owners had refused to sell food to Philippine nationals amid
the recent tensions between Manila and Taipei have admitted they had only
“heard” about the incidents.
Amid the row between Taiwan and the Philippines over the fatal shooting of
Taiwanese fisherman Hung Shih-cheng (洪石成) by Philippine Coast Guard personnel on
May 9, two stories were circulated among netizens detailing incidents in which
restaurant owners were said to have refused to sell food to Philippine
nationals.
In a post on her Facebook page last week, Tung said that a Philippine worker had
asked her to buy lunch for him because a restaurant owner had refused to sell
food to Filipinos, adding that he had been trying to get food for more than an
hour, but no one had been willing to help him.
Tung wrote that she had immediately bought food for the man and told the owner
that it was wrong to vent his anger about the shooting on a Filipino worker in
Taiwan.
Separately, Cheng, a journalist at the Chinese-language daily Lih Pao, posted a
similar story on his Facebook page last week, saying that he saw a restaurant
owner call two Filipinos “dogs” and saying he refused to sell food to “dogs.”
Cheng wrote that as the two Filipinos protested, the owner had thrown food on
the ground and told them to eat it like the dogs they were.
Cheng also claimed that he had told the owner his behavior was inappropriate and
had bought lunch for the Filipinos.
The two posts quickly went viral and were shared by tens of thousands of
Facebook users, many of whom condemned the restaurant owners, though others
questioned if the stories were true.
To show that he supported and trusted his colleague, Chang Cheng (張正),
editor-in-chief of Four Way Voice (四方報), Lih Pao’s sister newspaper, asked Cheng
to arrange an unofficial interview with the restaurant owner.
Chang posted the interview on his Facebook page, which seemed to validate
Cheng’s original post and confirm that the story was true.
However, doubts continued to grow and Minister of the Interior Lee Hong-yuan
(李鴻源) ordered a probe into the stories.
“I was deceived, it was my fault, I apologize,” Chang told a news conference at
Lih Pao’s head office in New Taipei City (新北市) yesterday afternoon. “After Cheng
posted the story on his Facebook page, Lih Pao’s deputy executive
editor-in-chief Liao Yun-chang (廖雲章) and I confirmed with Cheng several times
that the story was true. To further verify it, we also asked Cheng to arrange
the interview with the restaurant owner.”
However, to his horror, both the story and the interview turned out to be false,
Chang said.
After being questioned by the police on Tuesday night, “Cheng admitted that he
had merely ‘heard’ about the story instead of having ‘witnessed’ it personally,
and that the restaurant owner [that I met] was not actually a restaurant owner,
but a friend of his who agreed to act as the owner mentioned in his story,”
Chang said.
“I deeply regret Cheng’s dishonesty and I apologize for my failure to recognize
that the story was false,” he added. “Cheng will be dismissed from his post
immediately and I will also tender my resignation as editor-in-chief of Four Way
Voice.”
Tung also apologized to the public and journalists at a press confernce, once on
Tuesday evening and again yesterday morning.
“I said [in my Facebook post] that I personally witnessed a Filipino worker
being refused service by a restaurant, but in fact, I merely heard it from
another customer at the restaurant while waiting in line to get my lunch,” she
said. “I want to stress that I did not make up the story, but I would like to
apologize to the public for telling a lie that triggered such an uproar.”
Police yesterday charged Tung and Cheng with violating the Social Order
Maintenance Act (社會秩序維護法), which prohibits the spreading of rumors that cause a
public disturbance.
According to the act, if convicted, the two could face a maximum detention of
three days or a maximum fine of NT$30,000.
Their cases have been sent to the Taipei District Court for expedited trials.
Meanwhile, rights activists yesterday criticized the government for its handling
of the incidents.
“The government has overreacted by employing the state apparatus to investigate
whether two citizens had personally witnessed incidents posted on their private
Facebook pages, especially since no person or establishment was named in either
story,” said Chiu I-ling (邱伊翎), executive secretary of the Taiwan Association
for Human Rights. “It is equally ridiculous that the two have been charged with
violating the Social Order Maintenance Act, which is already legislation left
over from a time when the nation was under authoritarian rule.”
Chu Wei-li (朱維立), the executive director of the National Federation of
Independent Trade Unions, said that Cheng’s employer may have violated the Labor
Standards Act (勞動基準法) by dismissing him because of a non-work-related message he
posted on a personal Web page.
In other developments, lawmakers on the legislature’s Transportation Committee
passed a resolution asking the National Communications Commission (NCC) to
investigate if the media had violated any regulations by spreading false news
reports on the Internet.
Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Yeh Yi-jin (葉宜津) said the false stories
had damaged the image of Taiwanese since they had been spread internationally
through the newspaper’s Internet edition, giving people in other countries the
impression that Taiwan was inhumane, she said.
Asked if the commision could can regulate the online editions of newspapers and
magazines, NCC Chairman Howard Shyr (石世豪) said electronic editions “are a
continuation of print media.”
He thanked writer Giddens Ko (柯景騰), also known as Jiu Ba-dao (九把刀), for
volunteering to validate the authenticity of the reports.
“I would like to thank the online community for wielding its positive influence
in this occasion and the commission is also grateful that a writer [Jiubadao]
and other netizens were willing to spend their free time investigating the
matter. This is an example of why the independent operation of civic society
should always respected,” he said.
However, Yeh said Shyr was shirking his responsibilities and urged the
commission to take action to regulate online media outlets.
Additional reporting by Shelley Shan and Rich Chang
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