Why was a person acquitted for making a public threat? Attorney Xu Wanwei analyzes the crime of intimidating the public.

News Summary

According to TTV News, a man was charged with public intimidation for posting online after the Taipei MRT random attack, mentioning the possibility of another wave of attacks. He was acquitted in the first instance, and the second instance upheld the acquittal, rejecting the prosecution's appeal. The report indicated that the court held that the post was speculating on possible future events, not expressing an intention to commit harm.

Lawyer Xu Wanwei explains

In an interview, Attorney Wan-Wei Hsu of Fidelity Law Firm explained that the key issue in this case is whether it constitutes public intimidation. According to the court's ruling reported in the news, the post was a prediction of future events and did not express any intention to cause harm; therefore, it was not found guilty of public intimidation. This judgment was made based on the specific statements made in this case and cannot be directly applied to other posts.

Article 151 of the Criminal Law punishes acts that threaten the public with harm to life, body, or property, thereby endangering public security. The question is whether this constitutes a crime.Crime of intimidating the publicYou should thoroughly review the content of the post, its context, the way it was published, and the harmful intent it conveys. Don't just look at whether words like "prediction" or "joke" are used. If it involves a specific threat, you should save the original text, account, website address, and posting time and hand it over to the police for investigation. Do not forward it yourself to spread panic.

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