RESTORING JUSTICE: The commission plans to exonerate victims in groups so that family members do not need to wait until the inquiry’s conclusion to receive results
Taipei Times
Date: Jun 27, 2018
By: Chen Yu-fu and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
The Transitional Justice Commission’s investigative review of victims of political
People leave the Transitional Justice Commission building in Taipei on May 31, the day of its official opening. Photo: Liao Chen-huei, Taipei Times
persecution during the White Terror era would include victims of the 228 Incident, and would be a rehabilitative process that could exonerate up to 13,401 people, commission Deputy Chairman Chang Tien-chin (張天欽) said.
The Transitional Justice Act (促進轉型正義條例) mandates the commission to rehabilitate victims of political persecution, authorizing it to open inquiries into treason trials that were conducted during the White Terror era.
The 228 Incident refers to the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime’s violent military crackdown on popular protests and uprisings that began on Feb. 28, 1947. The massacres, which resulted in up to tens of thousands of dead and missing, marked the beginning of the White Terror era, when a state of emergency was declared and the nation was placed under martial law. [FULL STORY]
