The Taiwan People's Party (TPP) is accusing the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and President Lai Ching-te of interfering in the criminal justice system, saying the DPP is using the courts to target opposition politicians, including TPP founder Ko Wen-je, who is detained while facing corruption charges.
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00:00The Taiwan People's Party is calling for impartiality in the judiciary.
00:10They say that the ruling Democratic Progressive Party is using the court system to go after
00:15politicians that they do not agree with.
00:17This is all about Ko Wenzhe, who is the TPP's former party chair, who is currently detained
00:22in Comunicado and under charges of corruption.
00:25Prosecutors went back and forth between the high court and the district court, appealing
00:31in three bail hearings to finally get him back in detention.
00:35And the Taiwan People's Party is calling this political interference.
00:39Ko is an influential figure who's the founder and spiritual leader of the party, and his
00:45supporters affectionately call him uncle in Chinese.
00:48And he even earned over a quarter of the vote in the presidential elections last year, no
00:53small feat for a third-force party candidate.
00:57And he especially gained support among the young people who are tired of the established
01:02two-party system, the ruling Democratic Progressive Party and the main opposition, Kuomintang.
01:08And the Taiwan People's Party says that this has made Ko himself a threat in the DPP's
01:13eyes.
01:14The Taiwan People's Party has so far not provided any evidence that the Democratic Progressive
01:40Party or President Lai Ching-teh have directly interfered in the judiciary or Ko's case.
01:46But the Taiwan People's Party is calling on their supporters to come out to Freedom Square
01:50outside Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei on Saturday to make their voices heard.
01:55If over 10,000 people show up as the party expects, this would be the first big protest
02:01by the party since the new administration began last year, and it would be a major counter
02:06to the several DPP-aligned protests we saw last year known as the Bluebird Movement that
02:11were also over concerns of separation of powers in the legislature and the judiciary.
02:17And it looks like this is going to be a running theme in Taiwan's politics over the next few
02:21years as we see an extremely divided government where the president is from the Democratic
02:26Progressive Party, the legislature has no single party with a majority, and the top
02:32court sits half-empty as lawmakers have rejected the president's recent nominations.
02:37Luffy Lee and Tiffany Wong in Taipei for Taiwan Plus.