The daughter of former Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislator Yan Ching-fu (顏錦福) yesterday accused President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) of returning the country to the White Terror era after she said her father’s recent application for a certificate of good conduct was denied due to his wrongful conviction for sedition five decades ago.
Yan, 76, a DPP founding member, recently filed for the certificate with the Taipei Police Department as part of a US tourist visa application at the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT) to see his newly-born granddaughter.
Under the institute’s regulations, applicants for non-immigrant visas who have been arrested or convicted for any wrongdoings are required to present a criminal record certificate at their interview.
“My father was sentenced by the Taiwan Garrison Command in 1962 to two years in prison on charges of sedition only because he did not report an armed rebellion he knew about in advance,” Yan’s daughter, Taipei City Councilor Yan Sheng-kuan (顏聖冠), told a press conference yesterday.
Yan Sheng-kuan said the government cleared her father’s name and compensated him for the time he served in prison after it promulgated the Compensation Act for Wrongful Trials on Charges of Sedition and Espionage during the Martial Law Period (戒嚴時期不當叛亂暨匪諜審判案件補償條例) in 1998.
“The compensation was tantamount to an acquittal. The rejection of my father’s certificate application and the fact that his wrongful conviction still registers today prove that Taiwan is still overshadowed by its ‘White Terror,’ past” the city councilor said.
The Taiwan Garrison Command was a military security agency responsible for suppressing and killing many democracy activists during the 38-year-long White Terror era.
According to Section 6 of Article 6 of the Act Governing Issuance of Police Criminal Record Certificates (警察刑事紀錄證明核發條例), a penalty that has been abolished by the law should be excluded from the transgressor’s police criminal record.
Yan Sheng-kuan said she blamed the Ma administration, adding her father had served as a lawmaker under former presidents Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) and Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), and had made multiple visits to the US during his tenure between 1993 and 2005.
“Who would have known that after Ma resumed office, a wrongful conviction from 51 years ago would become the reason preventing my father from obtaining a good conduct certificate and going to the US,” she said.
Police Department Foreign Affairs Section director Chang Pi-hui (張碧慧) said yesterday that Yan Ching-fu’s application for the certificate was pending confirmation from the Ministry of National Defense, which was expected in the next three days.
“When the former lawmaker applied for the certificate, the police department discovered records of his sedition conviction in the databases of both the National Police Agency and the department’s Criminal Investigation Division,” Chang said.
“Since there were no details, the department decided to run the application by the ministry just to be sure,” Chang said.
To avoid a recurrence of the incident, Chang said the department was mulling a plan to create a database of White Terror victims based on a list compiled by the Compensation Foundation for Improper Verdicts.
“We will then be able to set up a standardized protocol to process good certificates as quickly as possible,” Chang said.
Additional reporting by Ho Po-ching and Lo Tien-pin
Hong Kong-based American singer-songwriter Khalil Fong (方大同) has passed away at the age of 41, Fong’s record label confirmed yesterday. “With unwavering optimism in the face of a relentless illness for five years, Khalil Fong gently and gracefully bid farewell to this world on the morning of February 21, 2025, stepping into the next realm of existence to carry forward his purpose and dreams,” Fu Music wrote on the company’s official Facebook page. “The music and graphic novels he gifted to the world remain an eternal testament to his luminous spirit, a timeless treasure for generations to come,” it said. Although Fong’s
China’s military buildup in the southern portion of the first island chain poses a serious threat to Taiwan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) supply, a defense analyst warned. Writing in a bulletin on the National Defense and Security Research’s Web site on Thursday, Huang Tsung-ting (黃宗鼎) said that China might choke off Taiwan’s energy supply without it. Beginning last year, China entrenched its position in the southern region of the first island chain, often with Russia’s active support, he said. In May of the same year, a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) force consisting of a Type 054A destroyer, Type 055 destroyer,
Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) was questioned by prosecutors for allegedly orchestrating an attack on a taxi driver after he was allegedly driven on a longer than necessary route in a car he disliked. The questioning at the New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office was ongoing as of press time last night. Police have recommended charges of attempted murder. The legally embattled actor — known for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代) — is under a separate investigation for allegedly using fake medical documents to evade mandatory military service. According to local media reports, police said Wang earlier last year ordered a
Taiwan is planning to expand the use of artificial intelligence (AI)-based X-ray imaging to customs clearance points over the next four years to curb the smuggling of contraband, a Customs Administration official said. The official on condition of anonymity said the plan would cover meat products, e-cigarettes and heated tobacco products, large bundles of banknotes and certain agricultural produce. Taiwan began using AI image recognition systems in July 2021. This year, generative AI — a subset of AI which uses generative models to produce data — would be used to train AI models to produce realistic X-ray images of contraband, the official
RSS