The Transitional Justice Commission is to investigate military detention and discipline centers established during the Martial Law era, as part of a plan to conserve the negative heritage sites and establish historical truth, a commission member said yesterday.
The commission has received a list of 45 negative heritage sites compiled by the Ministry of Culture and some sites are military compounds that the National Human Rights Museum’s investigators could not reach, the member said on condition of anonymity.
After visiting the Ministry of National Defense and establishing a communication channel with ministry officials, the commission is to thoroughly probe such military sites, the member said.
It would first target the 45 sites to which access was denied by the ministry before the Act on Promoting Transitional Justice (促進轉型正義條例) was passed last year, the member said, adding that the commission knows that the total number of such sites is far greater than that.
The ministry’s former establishments, including the National Security Bureau, the Military Police Command’s military detention center, as well as other detention centers run by the navy and the air force, are also among the commission’s targets for investigation, the member said.
The nation’s largest negative heritage site is the former Production and Education Experiment Institute in what is now New Taipei City’s Tucheng District (土城), a concentration camp where political prisoners underwent re-education, which was in 1972 renamed as the Taiwan Renai Education Experiment Institute, the member added.
Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu (陳菊) served a prison term of six years and two months at the institute, where former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮), late political activist Fu Cheng (傅正), writer Li Ao (李敖) and former legislator Lu Hsiu-yi (盧修一) were also imprisoned.
The commission should also establish the truth about the Shizilin Commercial Building (獅子林大樓) in Taipei’s Ximending (西門町), which was transformed from a Japanese temple into a detention center where political prisoners were kept during the Martial Law era, said Tsai Kuan-yu (蔡寬裕), honorary director of the Taiwan Association for the Care of the Victims of Political Persecution.
Whether to build monuments or museums to conserve the sites would be decided after the commission concludes its investigation, the member added.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
RESPONSE: The government would investigate incidents of Taiwanese entertainers in China promoting CCP propaganda online in contravention of the law, the source said Taiwanese entertainers living in China who are found to have contravened cross-strait regulations or collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) could be subject to fines, a source said on Sunday. Several Taiwanese entertainers have posted on the social media platform Sina Weibo saying that Taiwan “must be returned” to China, and sharing news articles from Chinese state media. In response, the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has asked the Ministry of Culture to investigate whether the entertainers had contravened any laws, and asked for them to be questioned upon their return to Taiwan, an official familiar with the matter said. To curb repeated
Myanmar has turned down an offer of assistance from Taiwanese search-and-rescue teams after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck the nation on Friday last week, saying other international aid is sufficient, the National Fire Agency said yesterday. More than 1,700 have been killed and 3,400 injured in the quake that struck near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay early on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a magnitude 6.7 aftershock. Worldwide, 13 international search-and-rescue teams have been deployed, with another 13 teams mobilizing, the agency said. Taiwan’s search-and-rescue teams were on standby, but have since been told to stand down, as