President Tsai Ing-wen visited a former Ministry of National Defense prison for military personnel July 15 in New Taipei City’s Xindian District. It has been designated as a heritage site by the Transitional Justice Commission, to illustrate the path that Taiwan has taken to democracy.
The president said that the abolition of martial law on July 15, 1987 marked an important milestone in Taiwan’s democratic development. For 38 years, political parties, journalism and freedom of speech were restricted, in a way that recent generations find hard to imagine.
The former Ministry of National Defense military personnel prison was also used as a jail for political prisoners for nearly four decades from 1948 to 1987. In 2022, the Transitional Justice Commission approved the building as a heritage site.
The president said that the site’s approval was part of a move to identify spaces where human rights were infringed under authoritarian rule, then to preserve and revitalize the facilities so that today’s freedom and democracy will be safeguarded by remembrance of past struggles.
Tsai hoped that transitional justice would continue and through creative and diverse planning, such heritage sites would become educative centers for visitors about history and truth. (POC-E)
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