Forty-two years after the arrest of his late father Lei Chen (
On Sep. 4, 1960, Lei Chen, a founder and publisher of the Free China biweekly, was arrested for treason and sentenced to 10 years in prison under the behest of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) because of the magazine's pro-democracy stance. The magazine, which was launched in 1950, was then terminated.
During his 10-year imprisonment, Lei Chen wrote a 4 million-word memoir chronicling his life and thoughts on democracy.
While the memoir and most government documents regarding the infamous "Lei Chen incident" mysteriously disappeared or were destroyed, the Academia Historica yesterday made public two volumes of books that contain Lei Chen's diaries, letters and government documents during his 10-year imprisonment.
The books were made possible by the efforts of the Ministry of National Defense, which spent two months interviewing 49 people and digging into 168,000 of its dusty files locked away deep inside its archives.
During the book presentation ceremony yesterday afternoon, President Chen Shui-bian (
"They show how a leader of an authoritarian regime could have his own way in ruling a country," Chen said. "We also know that as Taiwan has transformed into a democratic country, the government should do its best to preserve historic assets and safeguard freedom, social justice and human rights."
When Chen was a lawmaker, he had requested related government agencies investigate the incident but to no avail.
After coming to power in May 2000, Chen ordered the national defense ministry on Feb. 26 last year to recover Lei Chen's memoir and related government documents, after meeting with Lei Chen's family.
Chen yesterday encouraged the public to take full advantage of the two books to have a better understanding of the incident.
"We should thank God for giving us the opportunity to read the two books without worrying about being arrested or persecuted," Chen said.
Vice President Annette Lu (
"We owe what we have now to our predecessors who dared to stand up to the authorities and even lost their lives," she said. "To make our children proud of us, I'm calling on the legislature to make the president's promise a reality by approving the draft bill of Organic Law of the National Human Rights Commission."
The draft law was drawn up by an advisory group to the president on human rights on which Lu serves as convener and organized in October 2000.
The commission would report directly to the Presidential Office and function like the Control Yuan, the country's chief watchdog.
Lei Tien-hung, who made a trip back from the Philippines especially for the occasion, said that his family had suffered a lot over the years.
"I was 11 years old when my father was arrested. I literally didn't have any friends during my school years," he said.
"However, I've always believed that he was innocent, even when most people kept telling me that he was a spy and a traitor," he said.
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