TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Vice President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) and Legislative Speaker You Si-kun (游錫堃) recalled Taiwan’s dark days of martial law in keynote speeches at the International Religious Freedom Summit (IRF) at the Grand Hotel in Taipei on Thursday (Sept. 7).
In his speech, Lai said, "Taiwan has experienced the dark days of authoritarianism and dictatorship too.” He added, “Wherever there is a dictatorship and authoritarianism, there is religious persecution.”
Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Kuomintang (KMT) subjected Taiwan to 38 years of martial law from May 20, 1949, until July 14, 1987. During martial law, the KMT carried out a campaign of political persecution against the Taiwanese, known as the White Terror.
Lai said Taiwan owes its hard-won democratic and open society to the “brave determined efforts of Taiwanese, the sacrifices and contributions of previous generations of democratic movements, and international assistance.” Taiwan has to return the favor to the world and stand up to dictators by “standing together with religious leaders on the side of democracy,” he added.
You Si-kun’s speech was also marked by references to Taiwan’s bitter experience under martial law. He told the IRF audience that Taiwan had passed through a “bloody century of colonial rule and authoritarian oppression.”
On religious persecution, You listed the 1950s prohibition of the I-Kuan Tao religious sect and the forceful removal of the New Testament Church commune in the 1980s under a strict ban on religious association. You said Taiwan’s religious groups worked with democracy activists to fight for freedom before the ban on political parties was in lifted 1986 and the end of martial law in 1987.
You told how the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) came to be at a secret meeting, of which he was the chair, at the Grand Hotel, while the party ban was still in force on Sept. 7, 1986. It is widely believed that the formation of the DPP was a key factor in then-leader Chiang Ching-kuo’s (蔣經國) decision to lift martial law on July 15, 1987.
President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who is on a state visit to Eswatini, did not attend the event which was organized by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, ChinaAid, and the IRF Secretariat.
