The government should establish a treatment center for victims of the White Terror era and their families, the Transitional Justice Commission said, citing a study on psychological suffering.
The commission tasked the Taiwan Association of Clinical Psychology with studying the psychological suffering and treatment needs of White Terror victims and their family members.
The study used phenomenological psychology to analyze the subjective experiences of 24 victims and their families through interviews, the commission said, adding that the subjects of the study were categorized into those who were imprisoned and those whose family members were imprisoned.
Photo: CNA
“Many victims developed habits in prison that they retained when they were released. For example, some would sit on the floor to eat, and could not adapt to sitting at a table,” it said. “After meals, some would just walk around in circles like they had done while in prison.”
While speaking to interviewers about the torture of others that they had heard or witnessed while in prison, some victims would intermittently stop speaking or speak in broken sentences, it said.
“One man said he was forced to masturbate repeatedly in front of the guards and to use his semen to put out the flame of a candle,” the report said. “He said he was unable to forget the feeling of humiliation it caused him.”
Another was reported to have become mentally unstable and lived his final years in a psychiatric hospital after having seen so many fellow inmates tortured and shot, it said.
Conventional torture techniques were also reported to have been commonly used on political prisoners, including waterboarding, the removal of fingernails, sleep deprivation and electric shocks, it said.
“Many victims continue to experience nightmares... One man told us he has the same recurring dream of when special agents showed up to arrest him,” the report said.
“Many of these people had strokes or other conditions in their old age that affected their memories, but they still vividly remembered their arrest and torture,” it added.
The government has a responsibility to provide former political prisoners with long-term care and treatment, the report said, adding that doing so would demonstrate to other countries Taiwan’s resolve in enacting transitional justice.
“If Taiwan can establish an effective interdisciplinary treatment facility to help these political victims and their families, it could share that experience with other countries and be a model for transitional justice efforts elsewhere,” it said.
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