Prosecutors are seeking to hold six people connected to the opposition Kuomintang incommunicado, saying they are suspected of forging signatures on petitions to recall ruling party lawmakers. It comes after authorities searched 30 KMT branch offices as part of their investigation into the alleged so-called ghost signatures.
00:00Prosecutors have carried out sweeping investigations at dozens of opposition
00:05Kuomintang branch offices in northern Taiwan. Now they want to detain six people affiliated
00:12with the party and hold them incommunicado. Detention hearings are scheduled for Wednesday
00:18afternoon. The charges? Suspicion of forging signatures on petitions to recall lawmakers
00:24from the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.
00:30The DPP and KMT are locking horns in efforts to recall each other's lawmakers. Part of
00:38that process involves getting signatures from the public. If enough are collected, they can
00:44bring it to a vote to remove legislators from office. Prosecutors say they received a tip
00:50about fraudulent signatures on petitions supporting the KMT's recall campaigns. At the heart of
00:56the situation, the names of deceased people showing up on the party's petitions, or so-called
01:02ghost signatures.
01:03The KMT says prosecutors' actions are politically motivated, and the DPP is using its power to
01:23go after the KMT's recall movement. The KMT's reaction was immediate, and in one case, extreme. One person leading a recall campaign for the party was summoned to the prosecutor's office for questioning. He showed up brandishing a swastika armband,
01:28and a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf, and was photographed giving a Nazi salute.
01:36He's not one of the six people prosecutors hoped to detain, and was released on bail. But his actions have since drawn to the KMT's
01:38The KMT's reaction was immediate, and in one case, extreme. One person leading a recall campaign for the party was summoned to the prosecutor's office for questioning. He showed up brandishing a swastika armband and a copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf, and was photographed giving a Nazi salute.
01:58He's not one of the six people prosecutors hoped to detain, and was released on bail. But his actions have since drawn condemnation from Israel and Germany's representative offices in Taiwan.
02:12These are in direct contradiction to everything that Taiwanese people believe. Democracy, human rights, civil rights, tolerance, coexistence. I strongly condemn, and I deeply regret, and I'm very concerned about the use of the use of the law.
02:28The KMT has tried to distance itself from the man. The party's youth league released a statement saying it strongly condemns the use of Nazi symbols as a means of political expression.
02:43KMT Chair Eric Zhu has indicated he thinks the man was equating the DPP's alleged abuse of power with the authoritarian German regime.
02:53The DPP says that the KMT's actions are egregious and merit action.
02:58Taiwan's central election commission has said that of the 61 recall petitions it received, 41 potentially contain ghost signatures.
03:27On Wednesday, the commission announced that both KMT and DPP petitions have come under scrutiny.
03:35Those cases have already been forwarded to the authorities.
