Safety in mass transit systems and public places, policing of mass demonstrations, and prevention of fraud and illegal immigration were the chief topics of today's Executive Yuan public security meeting, the fifth held this year.
Premier Jiang Yi-huah, who chaired the meeting, asked the Ministry of Education (MOE), Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), Ministry of Justice (MOJ), Ministry of the Interior (MOI) and related agencies to explore in depth the areas on which the government can still work to improve—particularly in terms of school counseling, reporting and social alarm mechanisms—to prevent a tragedy similar to the recent mass random stabbing on the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Bannan Line, in which four were killed and 24 injured by a university student.
"The various sectors of society have already delved deeply into the reasons for such incidents, including educational, social and familial factors, and many experts and citizens are worried about the potential for copycat crimes," Jiang said. "All government agencies must squarely face this issue together and continue to strive for improvement to prevent the reoccurrence of such a case."
"This horrendous crime has shocked Taiwanese society, and the government has the responsibility to take the necessary actions to quickly restore citizens' faith in the nation's public security," he emphasized.
The MOI, Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) and local governments have already tightened security across the board in MRT trains and stations, and police officers have been increased to further ensure safety. Jiang said emergency procedures are being reviewed, and all employees—especially officers on patrol, station attendants and medical personnel, who are on the front line—must be familiar with these practices so that they could respond to any situation promptly and properly.
Supervisory agencies such as the MOI, MOTC and MOHW have to establish emergency standard operation procedures and conduct frequent drills in mass transit facilities such as the MRT, Taiwan Railways, Taiwan High Speed Rail and airports as well as other crowded public places, the premier ordered.
Briefings given at today's meeting included the following: the National Development Council's (NDC) report on progress made by various agencies on the directives issued by the chair in past public security meetings; the MOI's analysis of the current situation of public security; the Financial Supervisory Commission's (FSC) update on the finance sector's prevention of fraud; and the Coast Guard Administration's (CGA) analysis and improvement measures on cracking down on Vietnamese stowaways.
In response to the NDC's report, the premier asked the MOI and its National Police Agency (NPA) to strengthen education and training of police, as well as students of the Central Police University and Taiwan Police College, in techniques to handle mass demonstrations.
After being briefed by the MOI on the current law-and-order situation and analysis, Premier Jiang pointed out that although the number of violent crimes and thefts continued to drop in the first four months of this year, fraud cases jumped dramatically—by 46.35 percent (2,328 cases)—as compared with the same period last year. Therefore, fraud prevention tasks must be expediently augmented, he emphasized.
According to NPA reports, new forms of fraud via the social networking tool Line have increased the most. The premier therefore enjoined the NPA to demand all police units to thoroughly implement relevant preventative measures. Meanwhile, he also asked related agencies such as the National Communications Commission (NCC) and the FSC to assist in this prevention in order to effectively curb such frauds from spreading.
The premier also pointed out that the success of various police agencies' crackdowns on illegal firearms has increased greatly, with 202 more pieces (a year-on-year increase of 29.79 percent) confiscated from January to April 2014 than in the same period of 2013. He asked the NPA and other relevant agencies to continue with the crackdowns, strengthen monitoring of gangs' movements, and prevent major violent crimes in order to safeguard the country's law and order. He also requested the NPA to collaborate with the bicycle industry to see if it is feasible to add identification codes to bicycles to prevent theft.
As for the FSC report on measures to prevent financial frauds, the premier stated that since 2009, the number of accounts on which warnings have been placed to prevent fraudulent transfers has continued to fall. In 2013, such accounts declined by 1,066 (13.5 percent) year-on-year, with a massive reduction in the opening of dummy accounts in particular. Premier Jiang especially affirmed the joint efforts of the FSC and other financial institutions in preventing such financial frauds.
The premier directed the FSC to persist in supervising financial institutions to ensure that they conduct account management, take care of customers' queries and concerns at the service counter, and prevent the opening of dummy accounts. He also instructed the FSC to continue coordinating with prosecutorial and police agencies to jointly examine fraud-prevention methods in order to achieve the objective of collaborative prevention.
As for new forms of fraud, the premier stated that in recent cases not only the elderly but even middle-aged and young people have been targeted, citing the increase in new fraud conducted on Line, where criminals are continually renewing their methods of deception; therefore, preventative tasks must encompass the whole citizenry, the premier stated. Regardless of whether a dummy account is opened at the counter or via use of a previously inactive account, should any abnormality occur, financial institutions nationwide must take the initiative to be concerned and raise the alarm, he urged.
Jiang tasked Minister without Portfolio Tsai Yu-ling to oversee cross-ministerial coordination and produce breakthrough policy measures in the fight against new forms of fraud in conjunction with the MOI, FSC, Ministry of Science and Technology and NCC. To better warn the public about these threats, relevant agencies should produce simple primers and videos that employ new thinking to get educational messages across, the premier advised.
After a briefing by the CGA about its analysis and improvement measures to crack down on Vietnamese stowaways aiming to sneak into Taiwan, the premier said that Vietnamese made up almost 80 percent of foreign stowaways arrested by the ROC over the past five years and 96.1 percent last year. Agencies should be very much on guard to prevent stowaways from affecting Taiwan's public security, he warned.
The CGA has proposed six major concrete policy measures to deal with the issue, most of which fall within its own purview, noted the premier, who asked the agency to supervise its subordinate units to thoroughly implement these policies. Pointing out the ROC and Vietnam have already established relevant cooperation channels through two agreements—on preventing and combating crime, and on immigration affairs—he also asked the MOJ, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, NPA and National Immigration Agency to collaborate and place the investigation of Vietnamese stowaways on the two nations' cooperation agenda in order to cut off this illegal migration at the source.