The Gongsheng Music Festival, an annual event started by a group of young Taiwanese in 2013, this year is to feature a march marking the 70th anniversary of the 228 Incident.
The 228 Incident refers to a military crackdown by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) administration on civilian protesters that started on Feb. 27, 1947.
Historians estimate that as many as 30,000 people were killed.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
Festival organizer Tsai Yu-an (蔡喻安) said the march, to take place on Tuesday, is to begin in front of the Executive Yuan compound in Taipei, which was the location of the Bureau of the Executive Officer in 1947, where guards fired on protesters in events that led to the 228 Incident.
The march would finish in the 228 Memorial Park, Tsai said.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Feast team is to hold workshops and talks on transitional justice, wealth inequality and political persecution.
Photo: Liao Chen-Huei, Taipei Times
The team, which evolved from an event held in 2015 when Chin Him-san (陳欽生), a Malaysian of Hakka descent who studied at National Cheng Kung University in the 1970s, started a banquet to promote greater awareness of the plight of political victims and the homeless.
Chin was arrested in 1971 by the then-KMT government in relation to a bomb explosion at the US Information Service in Tainan.
Chin, who was 21 at the time, said that although intelligence officers found that he had nothing to do with the explosion, the government kept him imprisoned for 12 years because it refused to acknowledge that it had arrested the wrong person.
After his release and before he obtained Republic of China citizenship, Chin was helped out by a friendly chef, who always cooked an extra portion for him, which he said was a major factor in his decision to start the banquet.
Human Rights Feast team member Chang Fei-hsin (張斐昕) said most of the group’s members are younger than 30, adding that aside from holding the annual banquet for political victims, relatives of 228 Incident victims, the homeless and human rights workers, the group also hosts workshops and talks.
The group is cooperating with the Taiwan Dream City Building Association to teach disadvantaged people carpentry, and it is also working with Homeless Taiwan and Do You a Flavor to help the homeless, Chang said.
Past methods of commemorating the 228 Incident have been “heavy in mood,” but if the nation wishes to spread knowledge of the Incident to the younger generation, it must use different, more attractive methods, Chang said.
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