The Taiwanese man who verbally assaulted a foreigner and his local girlfriend on the Taipei metro has been arrested for slander and defamation, Taiwanese media has reported.
On October 15, the local man who is surnamed Liao and was an employee of a security company hurled abuse at the foreigner and his girlfriend for 8-10 minutes, calling the man “ugly,” and “trash” and his girlfriend a “whore” for dating a Westerner.
The victim, who identified himself as Christopher Raymond Hall, uploaded the video of the incident, shot by his girlfriend, onto his YouTube channel where it went viral. As of 4pm on Friday, it had been viewed over 1,400,000 times.
Hall said he reported the incident to the police the day after it occurred. However he was not satisfied with the police’s inefficient handling of the case and decided to post videos of the incident online. On Thursday, he posted an update on Facebook, saying that the suspect from the video had been found.
Upon arriving at the police station, Liao was surrounded by reporters saying “Why are you abusing Taiwan?” and “You have shamed Taiwan.”
Commenters on Reddit debated whether Liao should have been arrested, instead of simply being fired. A user commented, “I have a feeling that making Taiwan lose face internationally is what got him arrested. The charge is a technicality.”
