A victim of the White Terror era and ardent promoter of democracy has shifted his focus to care for his hometown after a life of political engagement and 15 years of false imprisonment.
Former political prisoner Chou Shun-chi (周順吉) is now the director of Dadaocheng Park in Taipei’s Datong District (大同) and leads a quiet life in his family’s ancestral home — a traditional Taiwanese-style brick structure — long and narrow — designed to integrate a storefront with a factory or storehouse. The building is a municipal historic site, he said.
A routine day for Chou includes him sweeping leaves with a bamboo broom at the park to the south of his residence, he said.
Photo: Hsiao Ting-fang, Taipei Times
Chou is a grandson of the founder and director of Dadaocheng Black Death Hospital, Chou Yi-kai (周儀塏), but that notable lineage did not save him from political persecution, he said.
Chou Shun-chi spent the better part of his youth behind bars — from 1969 to 1984 — for his involvement in the Unification Foundation, an organization founded in 1968 to raise public morality that was later criminalized for its perceived attempt to topple the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government, he said.
Under the stifling political atmosphere of the 1960s, any form of resistance movement was outlawed, and a patriotic campaign was the only outlet for students to express their concern and support for the nation, he said.
In 1963, Don Baron, a US exchange student at National Taiwan University, published an article decrying the lack of public morality among Taiwanese, which led to a wave of student-led campaigns to raise social awareness and encourage social reform, Chou Shun-chi said.
National Chengchi University student Hsu Hsi-tu (許席圖) cofounded the Chinese Youth Awareness Movement Association two days after Baron’s article was published, Chou Shun-chi said.
The Unification Foundation was a spin-off of the association, set up by Hsu to raise funds for a campaign that aimed to promote social reforms, Chou Shun-chi said.
Chou Shun-chi was only 17 and working at a Taipei hotel when he joined the association and the foundation, he said.
In 1969, the KMT government intervened in the budding student movement and determined that it was a rebel organization, charging its members with plotting against the government in accordance with the now-defunct Punishment of Rebellion Act (懲治叛亂條例), Chou Shun-chi said.
In an unpretentious corner of his home, a dust-covered verdict hangs on a wall stating the offenses the group was convicted of in handwritten notes and bearing the signature of then-president Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石).
The verdict found Hsu and Chou Shun-chi guilty of attempting to topple the government and sentenced Hsu to death and Chou Shun-chi to life in prison with no political rights.
Chou Shun-chi was incarcerated in Taipei’s Jingmei Prison and later on Green Island following his conviction, he said.
Recalling his life behind bars, he said: “Bonfire Island [another name for Green Island] speaks for my youthful days. It burned up half of my life.”
His sentence was commuted to a 15-year term and deprivation of political rights for 10 years as part of the general sentence reduction announced following Chiang’s death in 1975, he said.
After his release in 1984, Chu Shun-chi worked at the law firm founded by lawyer Yo Ying-fu (尤英夫) before starting a printing plant in his home. However, he was forced to shut the printint firm due to harassment by police, which persisted throughout his stint at a friend’s company, Chou Shun-chi said.
He managed to contact attorney Frank Hsieh (謝長廷), another former member of the association, and joined a major dangwai (黨外, “outside the party”) organization and later participated in the formation of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), of which he is a senior member, he said.
He founded the Taitung branch of Taiwan Democracy Television in 1991 following the deregulation of cable TV networks, he said.
Chou Shun-chi said the Taiwan High Court reopened his case in 1992 and proved his innocence, following an amendment to Article 100 of the Criminal Code, which had provided a legal basis for authorities to act against people they perceived intended to overthrow the government.
It took eight years for him and several other former members of the association to petition the court to provide redress for Hsu, whose sentence was reduced from death. Hsu was granted financial restitution in 2004 for an unfair trial in the Martial Law period and a certificate for the rehabilitation of his reputation was issued in 2005, Chou Shun-chi said.
However, Hsu was diagnosed with schizophrenia during his incarceration and was sent to a mental institution in Hualien in 1977 and has lived there since, Chou Shun-chi said.
“The only political prisoner in Taiwan who has still not been freed is Hsu,” Chou Shun-chi said.
The redress he and other association members received cannot alter the fact that the government ruined the promising futures of aspiring college students, he said.
“I have devoted my life to my ideals and democracy, not to a political career or money,” he said.
He has gradually detached himself from politics and the only remnant of his political past might be a DPP emblem that he always pins on his necktie, he said.
He is an ever-present figure at community gatherings in Dadaocheng and has recommitted himself to his hometown, he said, adding that the park he manages was established on his petition.
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