President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday attended a memorial concert in Kaohsiung for democracy activists Yu Teng-fa (余登發) and Yu Chen Yueh-ying (余陳月瑛), where he spoke about Taiwan’s democracy.
Taiwan’s transition from authoritarian rule to democracy was hard-won and the sacrifices of democracy activists must not be forgotten, Lai said.
He urged Taiwanese to follow the two late political figures’ love for Taiwan and continue advancing the nation’s democratic development, adding that Taiwan “must not turn back.”
Photo: Lee Hui-chou, Taipei Times
The memorial concert was organized by the Ba Gua Liao Foundation, chaired by former minister of the interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲).
The event drew more than 2,000 attendees, including Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Kaohsiung mayoral hopeful Lai Jui-lung (賴瑞隆), and several DPP legislators and local representatives from Kaohsiung.
Former Kaohsiung County commissioner Yu Teng-fa was arrested in 1979 and accused by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime of being a communist spy. Opposition figures and members of the public protested the arrest in what was then Kaohsiung County’s Ciaotou Township (橋頭), which Lai described as the first political protest of the Martial Law era.
Remembering Yu Teng-fa’s arrest is a reminder of how difficult Taiwan’s journey from authoritarianism to democracy had been and how many people sacrificed their freedom and lives along the way, Lai said.
The president also restated his four positions on Taiwan’s democracy and sovereignty: that Taiwan must uphold its democratic and constitutional system; that the Republic of China and the People’s Republic of China are not subordinate to each other; that Taiwan’s sovereignty cannot be infringed upon nor annexed; and that the future of Taiwan should be decided by its 23 million people.
He also outlined what he called three necessities in the face of external threats: Only by strengthening national defense, only by strengthening economic power and only by standing with like-minded democracies can Taiwan safeguard its democracy, freedom and security.
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