Taichung: The Taichung District Court has delivered mostly suspended sentences to individuals involved in document forgery at the Kuomintang’s (KMT) Taichung chapter. These actions were part of an attempt to recall two lawmakers from the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) last year.

According to Focus Taiwan, the court sentenced senior officials Chen Chien-feng and Wu Kang-long to 21 months and 23 months in prison, respectively, with both sentences suspended for five years. Additionally, both were stripped of their civil rights for two years and required to pay NT$300,000 (US$9,452) and NT$250,000 to the public treasury, respectively.

The court also handed down suspended prison terms ranging from three to 14 months to 30 other party staff members, with suspensions lasting between two and three years. However, two individuals, identified by their surnames Chou and Mai, received jail terms of nine months and one year, respectively, without suspension. The court did not specify the reasons for not suspending Chou and Mai’s sentences, though it noted that these rulings could be appealed.

All 34 individuals were found guilty of violating the Personal Data Protection Act. Prosecutors’ indictments revealed that these individuals allegedly forged 4,258 signatures following the chapter’s January 2025 decision to initiate recall petitions against lawmakers Tsai Chi-chang and Ho Hsin-chun. Wu led the recall campaign, with Chen aiding in its promotion. They reportedly directed their staff to organize and shuffle the forged signatures to evade detection before submitting the petitions to the Taichung Election Commission.

In recall campaigns, organizers must collect signatures from a certain percentage of eligible voters in the constituency to advance the recall to a vote.