President Tsai Turns Blind Eye to Underworld
China Times Editorial, October 24, 2022
The speaker election at the Tainan City Council has been widely reported to pose serious threats to the personal safety of various councilors due to involvement with organized crime syndicates. Councilors affiliated with the Kuomintang (KMT) collectively issued “statements of non-suicide” pressing for protection by the prosecutors. This is the first in Taiwan's constitutional democracy, a testament to how worse public safety in Tainan has become, to an extent that elected representatives are seriously frightened.
Recently, KMT Councilor Fang Yi-feng was reported to have been threatened. He claimed that an unknown person warned him that he has only two choices in the speaker election: either be absent or vote of himself, with the evident intention of consolidating the campaign of a particular candidate.
The city's mafia is so rampant that even a ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator find it scary and unsettling. DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei publicly cried for help, "Please, President and Vice President, Save Tainan.” However, there was no response from the Office of the President. In fact, it has failed to respond to people’s calls since last August when it was revealed that some Taiwanese were abducted to Cambodia and imprisoned, abused, resold, or even had their organs forcibly harvested. Unfortunately, President Tsai Ing-wen has not yet said a word relating to a series of public order crimes, completely ignoring the constant threat to people's lives and property.
Despite the frequency of public order crimes increases throughout Taiwan, it is worth noting that the issue has been particularly serious in local counties and cities where the ruling DPP has been in power for a long time. The largest number of the above-mentioned abductees to Cambodia were from Qingpu area in Taoyuan. Again, in Kaohsiung also under rule by the DPP, there have been unidentified bodies floating on Love River, Sizihwan, and Lotus Pond for several consecutive months.
In the past six months, there have been more than 30 unidentified corpses in Kaohsiung, and 72 have been found there in 2021, with an average of one unknown corpse every five days.
Despite the fact that those corpses need to be identified, the entire government, from the central to the local, does not make any investigation into the said cases proactively. The central government has not yet exerted pressure on the police to arrest the suspected gangsters, while the Kaohsiung City Government turned a blind eye to the corpses. The central government has long focused on elections rather than the people’s suffering.
Tainan has been experiencing election-related law and order incidents since last August, when a police officer was attacked before his throat was slit. After that, the Xuejia shooting case involving 88 bullets fired, the BB gun shooting of DPP Legislator Wu Tong-long’s factory case popped up, followed by a number of police officers involved in unlawful coverups, binge drinking accompanied by prostitutes, as well as false imprisonment of a city councilor. The bullets are flying through the air in Tainan. The reason that the safety issue is particularly serious in the counties and cities ruled by the DDP is probably related to the fact that the ruling party has abundant resources, contributing to the involvement of “black gold.” After all, the exchange of money and power drives crime.
Despite the recent wave of criminal activity, President Tsai is remaining silent. The problem is that as long as she is still surrounded by gangsters who are politically influential in politics, Taiwan would naturally become infested with organized crime.
President Tsai was eager to announce her convening the National Security Council. However, for the general public, a more clear and present threat to their lives comes from concerns about public safety. President Tsai, who has not held a press conference for more than 700 days, should not only stand on the front line to talk to the people in a bid to comfort and calm their fears as president but also convene a national public safety meeting as soon as possible to underscore the issue and put forward effective policies to rectify public safety.
From: https://www.chinatimes.com/opinion/20221224003109-262101?chdtv