On World Human Rights Day, Dec. 10, a former detention center in Taipei City that jailed some 130,000 dissidents during the 38-year Martial Law era will open to the public as a human rights park.
President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), who last month renamed Jingmei Military Detention Center (景美軍事看守所) Taiwan Human Rights Jingmei park (台灣人權景美園區), will lead the opening ceremony.
Democratic Progressive Party officials applauded the move to create a symbol of the nation's progress in human rights.
The idea of turning the detention center into a park was proposed by Vice President Annette Lu (
Lu was sentenced to 12 years in prison on charges of sedition after she delivered a speech on human rights in Kaohsiung in 1979. She served nearly five-and-a-half years in prison.
When Lu was awarded the 2001 World Peace Prize by the Christian World Peace Corps Mission, she visited the detention center with representatives from the mission and was told that the military would soon demolish the buildings. Lu suggested that the government preserve the compound so that future generations would remember past atrocities.
The government decided to remodel the detention center, with the help of academics, human rights organizations and other civic groups that contributed to the project in various ways.
While there is no official death toll for political killings in the Martial Law era, Lu said that 29,000 political cases were recorded, 140,000 people jailed and at least 4,000 people killed.
In October, the Peng Foundation for Culture and Education, founded by independence activist and former presidential senior adviser Peng Ming-min (
The public park will preserve original buildings, including detention cells and a notorious military court known as the "mini court," where political prisoners were interrogated.
An undersea cable to Penghu County has been severed, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said today, with a Chinese-funded ship suspected of being responsible. It comes just a month after a Chinese ship was suspected of severing an undersea cable north of Keelung Harbor. The National Communications and Cyber Security Center received a report at 3:03am today from Chunghwa Telecom that the No. 3 cable from Taiwan to Penghu was severed 14.7km off the coast of Tainan, the Ministry of Digital Affairs said. The Coast Guard Administration (CGA) upon receiving a report from Chunghwa Telecom began to monitor the Togolese-flagged Hong Tai (宏泰)
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
Actor Lee Wei (李威) was released on bail on Monday after being named as a suspect in the death of a woman whose body was found in the meeting place of a Buddhist group in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) last year, prosecutors said. Lee, 44, was released on NT$300,000 (US$9,148) bail, while his wife, surnamed Chien (簡), was released on NT$150,000 bail after both were summoned to give statements regarding the woman’s death. The home of Lee, who has retreated from the entertainment business in the past few years, was also searched by prosecutors and police earlier on Monday. Lee was questioned three
RISING TOURISM: A survey showed that tourist visits increased by 35 percent last year, while newly created attractions contributed almost half of the growth Changhua County’s Lukang Old Street (鹿港老街) and its surrounding historical area clinched first place among Taiwan’s most successful tourist attractions last year, while no location in eastern Taiwan achieved a spot in the top 20 list, the Tourism Administration said. The listing was created by the Tourism Administration’s Forward-looking Tourism Policy Research office. Last year, the Lukang Old Street and its surrounding area had 17.3 million visitors, more than the 16 million visitors for the Wenhua Road Night Market (文化路夜市) in Chiayi City and 14.5 million visitors at Tainan’s Anping (安平) historical area, it said. The Taipei 101 skyscraper and its environs —
RSS