Accused of insinuating that Mirror Weekly instigated gangsters to intimidate journalists' families, Huang Guochang was acquitted of defamation charges

Jingjing Media (Mirror Weekly) accused People's Party Chairman Huang Guochang of defamation when he insinuated at a press conference that Jingjing Media instigated a gangster to put nails on the car of reporter Chen Yanheng's father and other intimidation. Huang Guochang denied the crime and accused the opponent of going through the motions to file a criminal prosecution in this case, which was a waste of judicial resources. The whole case was concluded today, and the Taipei District Court found Huang Guochang not guilty.

The incident originated from October 1 last year. When Huang Guochang was interviewed by the media, he responded, "Who is the source of funds behind that overseas paper company in a tax haven? Is it Pei Wei? Does Pei Wei have 800 million? No, it is not Pei Wei. We really need to trace the funds from unknown sources. The DPP is looking at Jingjing Media Group and investigate carefully!"

He also mentioned that "when reporter Chen Yanheng was tracing the source of Jingjing Media's funds, the journalist's father's car gas tank was filled with iron nails. He bluntly said, "This is the trouble he caused by writing such an investigative report." In this regard, Jingjing Media believed that Huang's insinuation that Chen was intimidated by the underworld was due to tracing the source of Jingjing Media's funds, and therefore filed a private prosecution.

During the debate stage, Jingjing Media argued that Huang Guochang's speech should be based on the context of the time, and that individual statements should not be isolated from the context and interpreted in isolation, so that the outside world would think that tracing the funds behind Jingjing Media and being intimidated and retaliated by the underworld would be enough to give ordinary people a wrong impression of Jingjing Media and detract from its reputation.

Huang Guochang responded that Jingjing Media’s instigation of this criminal prosecution is no longer a matter of Chinese literacy, but a waste of precious judicial resources. He explained that Chen was mentioned in interviews at that time because other reporters did not dare to offend Jingjing Media. This report was written by Chen, so she was mentioned. What was mentioned later was to praise her for being very brave.

Huang Guochang said, "This Chinese should not be that difficult to understand. Everything I said is true, and none of the content is untrue." He was baffled by Jingjing Media's accusation.

At the end of the court, the judge asked Huang Guochang if he had any comments to add. He said that he felt very sorry and very angry that Jingjing Media had such a large media resource and was smearing others all day long and had the nerve to raise such unreasonable accusations.