TAIPEI: Five people in Taiwan were charged on Wednesday for allegedly attacking a Taiwanese stand-up comedian after he criticised the Chinese Communist Party, prosecutors said.
Taiwan has accused China of growing transnational repression targeting critics on the island, which Beijing claims is part of its territory and has threatened to use force to bring it under its control.
The Taiwanese defendants were allegedly hired by a Chinese person to surveil and assault Huang Yi-hao to prevent him from performing at a show on Sept 20, the New Taipei Prosecutors Office said in a statement.
The five began tracking Huang in July and planned to stage a car accident with the intention of breaking his arms and legs so he would be hospitalised and unable to go on stage, the prosecutors said.
Two of the defendants allegedly rammed a car into Huang's scooter as he rode home on Sept 11, leaving him with a bruised pelvis.
"This case involves a serious incident in which the Chinese Communist Party is suspected of using cross-border suppression tactics to direct lawless elements in our country to suppress dissenting political voices through extreme violence," the prosecutors said.
Two of the defendants have admitted their involvement in the plan to injure Huang, they said.
The five "willingly served foreign hostile forces with the intent to create a chilling effect" in Taiwanese society, prosecutors said, adding that the attack showed "extreme malice" and "disregard for human life."
After the incident, the defendants obtained Huang's medical records in order to request the final instalment of the NT$450,000 (US$13,900) payment from the Chinese national.
Huang thanked investigators and warned that freedom of speech would be at risk if China ever ruled Taiwan.
"All I did was spend two and a half minutes criticising (Chinese President) Xi Jinping on a stage in Taiwan, yet I was subsequently targeted with both a faeces-throwing attack and a deliberate vehicular assault," Huang said in a statement on Facebook.
"If people can already be subjected to this kind of treatment simply for criticising the Chinese Communist Party when it does not even govern Taiwan, how can we expect to retain our current freedom of speech if the CCP were ever to rule Taiwan?"--AFP
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd