As the nation prepares to mark the 71st anniversary of the 228 Incident next week, 228 Memorial Foundation president Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元) yesterday urged the government to step up its efforts to declassify political archives, redress the injustices committed during the authoritarian era and remove remnants of the dictatorial era.
The 228 Incident refers to an uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, and was violently suppressed by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government. The Incident marked the beginning of the White Terror era.
In light of the passage of the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) in December last year, transitional justice is the focus of this year’s 228 anniversary, Hsueh said, adding that such efforts should not be confined to Feb. 28.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
The commemorative event for this year is to be held at the 228 Peace Memorial Park at 2:30pm on Wednesday. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) is scheduled to give a talk and give the families of victims certificates attesting to their innocence.
The Gongsheng Music Festival is to take place from 4pm to 9:30pm. The festival began as a student-led event aimed at raising youth awareness about the 228 Incident and is marking its sixth year.
Festival convener Hsu Hsiang-pi (徐祥弼) said the theme for this year — John Does — refers to the judges, military officials and police involved in the incident who have not been identified.
“We hope to raise awareness about the 228 Incident and come to understand the Incident from different angles. In this case from the perspective of the oppressors,” Hsu said.
Turning to transitional justice, Hsueh pledged the foundation’s support in investigations that would be launched after a nine-member independent transitional justice promotion committee is established in accordance with the act.
Hsueh said the foundation would also include names of newly discovered victims in its files and continue its efforts to restore historical truths.
After cross-checking names in the declassified documents from the former Secrecy Bureau, Hsueh said the foundation has identified another 931 victims in the Incident.
Taiwan 228 Incident Care Association director-general Pan Hsin-hsing (潘信行) said he was glad to see the passage of the act during his lifetime, urging the KMT to likewise declassify and publicize its political archives.
“How can the families of the victims ask for settlement without the truth?” Pan asked.
Investigations into who was responsible for the 228 Incident have all pointed to former president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), Pan said, but to this day Chiang is still worshipped as a “false god” with the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
The families do not want vengeance, but they ask that justice be implemented in Taiwan, Pan said.
All artifacts or buildings pertaining to the authoritarian regime of Chiang should be removed, Pan said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods