A bill mandating the preservation of sites of injustice needs to be passed to ensure that the people and the events of the White Terror era are not forgotten, members of Gikong (義光) Presbyterian Church, legislators and rights advocates told a news conference at the legislature on Thursday.
The call came after the Taipei City Government rejected an application to designate the church as a site of injustice.
The church in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) was formerly the home of Lin I-hsiung (林義雄), a former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) chairman, before the murder of his seven-year-old twin daughters and 60-year-old mother there on Feb. 28, 1980.
Photo: Screen grab from the Gikong Presbyterian Church Facebook page
“Protecting sites such as the church would be an important foundation to safeguard the values of freedom and democracy,” DPP Legislator Fan Yun (范雲) told the news conference.
The city government rejected preservation status for the site on the basis that the case remains unsolved, Fan said.
The killer was never identified, so it cannot assess its historic value, she said.
Despite the truth about the case not being fully known, some Taipei officials believe the site has much historic meaning and value, she said, adding that the city government should follow what was done to memorialize Machangding Memorial Park (馬場町紀念公園).
The park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華) was used as an execution ground for political prisoners during the White Terror era. It has preservation protection as a historic site using the name Machangding Execution Ground (馬場町刑場).
The White Terror era refers to the suppression of political dissidents, including the 228 Incident, an uprising that began on Feb. 27, 1947, that was brutally suppressed by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime. The government subsequently imposed martial law, which was lifted on July 15, 1987.
Fan said that if preservation legislation is passed, Gikong Presbyterian Church would likely qualify, and the memory of what happened there would be passed on to future generations.
The three Lin family members were stabbed to death, while the oldest daughter, who was nine at the time, survived, despite being stabbed six times.
At the time of the murders, Lin’s wife was visiting him in detention, where he was being held on charges of insurrection after helping to organize a demonstration against the government.
As the house was under close surveillance by police and secret service agents, some believe the murders were arranged by the government as a warning to those involved in the democracy movement.
Wang Ming-tse (王銘澤), one of the pastors at the church, said that Gikong Presbyterian Church would push for a bill to be passed.
The Executive Yuan in July last year approved draft “regulations on the preservation of unjust sites” and sent it to the Legislative Yuan, which has not reached an agreement on a bill.
To boost support for the passage of the legislation, members of the church plan to erect a plaque and conduct ceremonies to establish the site as a historic part of Taiwanese society — a site to preserve memories, to learn and reflect, Wang said.
The three main demands are to ask members of the KMT to stop interfering in the passage of the bill, to urge central government agencies to continue to seek out sites that would qualify for preservation regardless of whether the draft bill advances and to call on local governments to protect sites of cultural significance to prevent them from being neglected or destroyed, Fan said.
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