離開
進入《TAIPEI TIMES》 Office seeks to declassify White Terror-era deaths
Former Democratic Progressive Party chairman Lin I-hsiung, left, and his wife, Fang Su-min, second left, attend a memorial service for Lin’s murdered mother and the couples’ murdered twin daughters at the Lin Family Cemetery in Yilan County in 2013. Photo: Hu Chien-sen, Taipei Times
By Lee Hsin-fang and Jonathan Chin / Staff reporter, with staff writer
President Tsai Ing-wen （蔡英文） has directed Presidential Office Secretary-General Chen Chu （陳菊） to look into unsealing at least some of the National Security Bureau’s secret files on independence advocates Lin I-hsiung （林義雄） and Chen Wen-chen （陳文成） from the White Terror era, a source said on Friday.
The Transitional Justice Commission has butted heads with the bureau over the classified documents, with some officials prioritizing state secrecy over transparency, a source familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity.
The documents were requested because the commission believes they could shed light on events from nearly four decades ago that surround Lin and Chen.
On Feb. 28, 1980, Lin was fighting treason charges before a military tribunal when his mother and two of his three daughters were stabbed to death at the Lin residence.
The murders, which remain unsolved, sparked outrage and recriminations against the government, as the residence was believed to be under heavy surveillance by the state security apparatus at the time.
Carnegie Mellon University professor Chen was on July 3, 1981, found dead on National Taiwan University’s campus during a visit to Taipei.
He was last seen being taken away for questioning by agents of the now-defunct Taiwan Garrison Command.
The command has said Chen was released after questioning, but his family has maintained that he was killed by the then-Chinese Nationalist Party （KMT） regime for his pro-democratic views.
Chen Chu led a meeting attended by National Security Council Secretary-General David Lee （李大維）, at which a motion was made to review secret documents for declassification, the source said.
It was decided at the meeting that although the documents are classified “in perpetuity,” the necessity of continued secrecy must be evaluated jointly by the Transitional Justice Commission, the National Security Council and the National Security Bureau, the source said.
Documents deemed appropriate for the work of transitional justice and lacking a compelling reason for continued secrecy are to be handed over to the commission, the source added.
In the decision, Chen Chu cited Thursday’s passage of the Political Files Act （政治檔案法） by the Legislative Yuan, the source said.
The new legislation, which is awaiting Tsai’s signature, would require that the government make a legally compelling reason to renew the secret status of documents after they have been classified for 30 years.
The Transitional Justice Commission is asking the National Security Bureau to release documents linked to 20 people and incidents during the White Terror era, commission spokeswoman Yeh Hung-ling （葉虹靈） said, adding that passage of the Political Files Act was “a major milestone in transitional justice.”
新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES
