Others also urged the government to amend school textbooks -- which remain tainted by KMT efforts to gloss over the event -- to reflect the facts of the incident.
In a bid to promote ethnic integration, Premier Yu Shyi-kun has also announced that Feb. 28 is a national holiday.
The date was proclaimed an optional day off last year, but on the condition that organizations observing it work the following Saturday instead.
Influence on the DPP
If the 228 Incident has any influence at all on the DPP, it is the "32 requests" made by then-influential social elite after the incident.
They called on the KMT-controlled Taiwan Provincial Government to hold popular elections for regional government officials; respect the freedom of congregation, speech, publication and strike; and hire Taiwanese as heads of state-run enterprises, district court directors, chief prosecutors and other judicial personnel.
The "32 requests" are considered the fundamental spirit of Taiwan's democratic movements including the tangwai movement initiated by daring dissidents before the DPP was formed in 1986.
Following the 228 Incident was the White Terror era in which thousands of Taiwan's most prominent citizens and leading intellectuals were dragged from their homes and killed or vanished without explanation.
During the subsequent half century, private citizens have maintained a discreet silence, not daring to mention the taboo subject of the incident.
The situation did not improve until the tangwai movement emerged. The tangwai movement gradually gained steam after Lee came to power in 1988.
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