Taiwan Church News
3485 Edition
December 10 – 12, 2018
Headline News
1,505 Political Prisoners Exonerated On The Eve Of Human Rights Day
Reported by Lin Yi-yin
Together with an aboriginal ceremony of “Sbalay”(meaning reconciliation in Atayal aboriginal language), an juridicial decree of exoneration of 1,505 Taiwanese political prisoners convicted, among them 27 aborigines were also unjustly persecuted, during the aftermath of 228 massacre and the white-terror period in 1950s, was held at Human Rights Memorial and Cultural Park in Jingmei District of New Taipei City on December 9, 2018.
The Sbalay ceremony was opened by a message from Rev ‘Eleng Tjaljimaraw, Associate General Secretary of PCT, hosted by Rev Omi Wilang, secretary of PCT’s Indigenous Mission Committee, and collaborated with a highly reverend Atayal Elder, Watan Tanga, and his two sons: Batu Watan and Tasaw Watan.
The old Atayal lyric, sang by Elder Watan Tanga, literally read “What kind of debt has to pay and what kind of justice needs to restore, which are not due to personal interests, depends on mutual respect, serious mind and attentive heart to our fathers’ teachings: No turning against each other and No building wall with thorns”, according to the interpretation by Rev Omi Wilang.
In the ceremony, both Mrs Kau Pai-lang, a wife of the political prisoner and also a daughter of aboriginal political victim, and Ms Lang Yun-roh, a political victim’s daughter, stood up bravely to witness the cruel rulings and cold-blooded brainwash by KMT(the Chinese Nationalist Party) regime in the white terror era of the 1950s.
Vice President Dr Chen Chien-jen, attending this assembly on behalf of the government, expressed that the exoneration declared to the 1,505 people is not enough for those people suffered on this island due to injustice. “We shall learn seriously from these historic lessons, and make the future of Taiwan become more and more progressive in the fields of human rights, freedom, democracy, rule of law and etc.”
Translated by Peter Wolfe
