At least eight government agencies reportedly received bomb threats ahead of a Taipei memorial event commemorating the bloody crackdown on student protesters around Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989. The messages demanded that any memorial events for the anniversary be canceled.
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00:00Several government agencies say they received bomb threats, warning them not to hold a key vigil in Taipei,
00:07marking the anniversary of Beijing's deadly crackdown in Tiananmen Square.
00:13Leslie Liao has been following the story and joins us from our newsroom in Taipei.
00:18Leslie, who received these bomb threats and what did they say?
00:22Hi, Luis. So we know that at least eight government agencies reportedly received email bomb threats before the Tiananmen Memorial,
00:34including the presidential office, the cabinet and the Mainland Affairs Council, which governs relations with China.
00:41The threats are very clear to not hold any memorial events marking the deadly crackdown that happened in Beijing in 1989.
00:48A Mainland Affairs Council statement offers more details, and let me read that to you now.
00:53It says,
00:54We received an email saying that a bomb had been placed in our building and that it will be detonated if the June 4th memorial event went forward.
01:02We immediately notified authorities and a subsequent sweep of our office did not reveal any bomb or suspicious objects.
01:09From here on, the police will handle the case for further investigation.
01:12The Mainland Affairs Council severely condemns anyone spreading fear and threatening public safety.
01:18The Tiananmen Square incident has been heavily censored in China and memorial events have been banned in the communist country for years and more recently Hong Kong.
01:28Now, Taipei police have told Taiwan Plus that they are indeed looking into the bomb threats, but have not provided any further details.
01:35But local Taiwan media reports, which cite anonymous police sources, say that the threats targeted Taiwan's leaders, like President Lai Ching-de and Vice President Bi Kim Xiao.
01:47And the sender also warned that if the event went forward, not only would they detonate bombs, but they would go down to the event and commit a shooting.
01:55According to the reports, police dispatched additional resources to the event for security.
02:02And so far, there have been no reports of threats materializing that have been outlined in the email.
02:08Now, according to the police, their investigation shows that at least a few of the emails were sent from the same sender and that they originated from an IP address in the United States.
02:17But they're not ruling out that the sender may have used a VPN to change their IP address.
02:23This is an ongoing investigation and more details will soon come.
02:29Thanks, Leslie, for that.
02:31And we'll bring you updates as and when we get them.