‘CULT OF PERSONALITY’:A former political prisoner said victims of repression resent commemoration of the former president, which he called an anti-democratic statement

Taipei Times
Date: Mar 28, 2016
By: Lee Hsin-fang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer

President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) decision to name an auditorium after former president Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國) glorifies a “secret police czar” and the “White Terror hangman,” survivors of the White Terror era said.

Presidential Office spokesman Charles Chen (陳以信) on Tuesday last week said in a news release that because Chiang attached great importance throughout his life to the cultivation of young people and served as director of the China Youth Anti-Communist National Salvation Corps for about 21 years, the office is to name an auditorium in the Presidential Office Building after him tomorrow, Youth Day.

Taiwan Association for the Care of the Victims of Political Persecution During the Martial Law Period secretary-general Tsai Kuan-yu (蔡寬裕) said that since Chen’s announcement, he has received calls from many White Terror survivors expressing displeasure over the naming of the auditorium, adding that a protest against the decision is being organized.

Tsai said that during the White Terror era, Chiang was head of the political warfare department at the Ministry of National Defense, which implicated him as the “secret police czar” and “overseer of the White Terror period.”

Chiang was the “White Terror hangman,” because numerous archived case files of White Terror victims contained Chiang’s written orders for their execution over fabricated charges and Chiang’s trusted lieutenants occupied leadership positions within security apparatuses throughout the White Terror era, former political prisoner Kao Chin-lang (高金郎) said.     [FULL  STORY]