The Memorial Foundation of 228 said it has asked the Ministry of the Interior to amend the Act for Handling and Compensation for the 228 Incident (二 二 八事件賠償及處理條例) to extend the period for claiming compensation, after a slew of documents related to the Incident were uncovered, giving victims an opportunity to seek compensation.
The act had set the deadline for claiming state compensation as Tuesday last week.
According to the act, victims could claim compensation within seven years of Oct. 7, 1995. The deadline was later extended.
In 2013, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) proposed to amend the act and the period was extended for another four years.
However, foundation executive director Yang Cheng-long (楊振隆) on Saturday said that victims need more time to claim compensation as more historic documents about the massacre are still being uncovered.
According to papers published by Academia Sinica, about 1,100 people were persecuted by then-Secrecy Bureau during the Incident, but only 68 of them have so far claimed compensation, he said.
Many victims could not disclose that they had been persecuted, due to oppression during the White Terror era, Yang said, adding that there are still many people who could not find the bodies of their relatives killed during the Incident and they had not been given proper death certificates.
As a result, they could not claim compensation, Yang said.
For these reasons, Yang said he has requested the ministry to extend the period to claim compensation.
Deputy Minister of the Interior Lin Tzu-ling (林慈玲) said the ministry is evaluating the proposal and that no decision has been made.
An official speaking on condition of anonymity said it is possible that the act would be amended and the period would be extended.
The Incident refers to a crackdown launched by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime against civilian demonstrations following an incident in Taipei on Feb. 27, 1947. The crackdown is considered the beginning of the White Terror era, during which thousands of people were arrested, imprisoned and executed.
Historians estimate as many as 30,000 people were killed.
The Executive Yuan in 1990 set up a task force to investigate the Incident.
The Report of the 228 Incident was published in 1992, and a memorial was set up in 1995 at the 228 Peace Park in Taipei.
In October 1995, the state-funded Memorial Foundation of 228 was established to deal with compensation and rehabilitation of 228 Incident victims.
Taiwan yesterday condemned the recent increase in Chinese coast guard-escorted fishing vessels operating illegally in waters around the Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the South China Sea. Unusually large groupings of Chinese fishing vessels began to appear around the islands on Feb. 15, when at least six motherships and 29 smaller boats were sighted, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said in a news release. While CGA vessels were dispatched to expel the Chinese boats, Chinese coast guard ships trespassed into Taiwan’s restricted waters and unsuccessfully attempted to interfere, the CGA said. Due to the provocation, the CGA initiated an operation to increase
A crowd of over 200 people gathered outside the Taipei District Court as two sisters indicted for abusing a 1-year-old boy to death attended a preliminary hearing in the case yesterday afternoon. The crowd held up signs and chanted slogans calling for aggravated penalties in child abuse cases and asking for no bail and “capital punishment.” They also held white flowers in memory of the boy, nicknamed Kai Kai (剴剴), who was allegedly tortured to death by the sisters in December 2023. The boy died four months after being placed in full-time foster care with the
CHANGING LANDSCAPE: Many of the part-time programs for educators were no longer needed, as many teachers obtain a graduate degree before joining the workforce, experts said Taiwanese universities this year canceled 86 programs, Ministry of Education data showed, with educators attributing the closures to the nation’s low birthrate as well as shifting trends. Fifty-three of the shuttered programs were part-time postgraduate degree programs, about 62 percent of the total, the most in the past five years, the data showed. National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU) discontinued the most part-time master’s programs, at 16: chemistry, life science, earth science, physics, fine arts, music, special education, health promotion and health education, educational psychology and counseling, education, design, Chinese as a second language, library and information sciences, mechatronics engineering, history, physical education
The Shanlan Express (山嵐號), or “Mountain Mist Express,” is scheduled to launch on April 19 as part of the centennial celebration of the inauguration of the Taitung Line. The tourism express train was renovated from the Taiwan Railway Corp’s EMU500 commuter trains. It has four carriages and a seating capacity of 60 passengers. Lion Travel is arranging railway tours for the express service. Several news outlets were invited to experience the pilot tour on the new express train service, which is to operate between Hualien Railway Station and Chihshang (池上) Railway Station in Taitung County. It would also be the first tourism service
RSS