ROC President Ma Ying-jeou unveiled a memorial museum and research center in honor of democracy pioneer Lei Chen at National Chengchi University in Taipei March 7, exactly 33 years after Lei’s death.
During the ceremony, Ma apologized to Lei’s family for mistreatment received at the hands of the previous Kuomintang regime, and promised to face history and restore the truth behind Taiwan’s White Terror period, when thousands of people were persecuted, imprisoned or executed by government authorities under martial law.
Lei’s daughter Lei Mei-ling said, “My father dedicated his whole life to advocating democracy and human rights for the good of the nation, but in the end suffered from a miscarriage of justice.
“With the opening of this center, his name has been finally restored.” She added that in the name of social harmony the family has chosen to forgive.
Lei (1897-1979), a senior advisor to former President Chiang Kai-shek from 1950 to 1953, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of sedition in October 1960, apparently due to his constant criticism of Chiang’s authoritarian rule beginning in the 1950s, particularly in Free China, the bimonthly magazine he founded.
Ahead of his arrest, Lei, along with other liberal politicians, was planning to launch the Chinese Democracy Party, in keeping with his campaign for party politics. His arrest and imprisonment are known as the Lei Chen Incident.
After his release from prison in 1970, Lei advocated the establishment of two Chinas in anticipation that the ROC’s seat in the United Nations would soon be transferred to the mainland Chinese government—as transpired in October 1971.
In 1972, Lei delivered a proposal to top KMT officials, including Chiang, to change the nation’s name to Democratic State of China-Taiwan and renounce sovereignty over the mainland. He also called for a new constitution.
In 1988, then Taipei Mayor Chen Shui-bian requested an investigation into the Lei Chen Incident and helped seek national compensation. Declassified documents and interviews with related persons regarding the incident were published in 2002 by Academia Historica.
Lee Shiao-feng, a professor of Taiwanese culture at National Taipei University of Education, said, “Lei’s ideas and the things he did to uphold democracy and constitutional rule inspired generations of activists in the 1970s and 1980s.”
According to NCCU, the museum-center now houses documents regarding Lei formerly scattered in Academia Historica, Academia Sinica and other institutions, as well as a complete set of the issues of Free China magazine and Lei’s unpublished manuscripts and family letters, donated by his family. (THN)