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Report - - Military and political prison, Taipei, Taiwan - March 2013 | European and International Sites | 28DaysLater.co.uk

Report - Military and political prison, Taipei, Taiwan - March 2013

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Clarence Trumble-Lovegod

28DL Full Member
28DL Full Member
This prison was formerly a Japanese military prison and military base when it opened around the turn of the century. In 1947, the Koumintang party established military rule on the island and took control of the base, turning it into a prison.
The prison has a very nasty past. The prison was primarily used to house political prisoners who were rounded up during the White Terror period. From the time the KMT arrived on the island up until when marshal law was abolished in 1987, thousands of people disappeared off the streets of Taiwan and were held at this prison, either to be shot, detained at the prison or transferred to another prison on a small island about 12 miles off the eastern coast of Taiwan.

White terror existed from 1949 to 1987, around 140,000 Taiwanese were imprisoned during this period, of which about from 3,000-4,000 were executed, for their real or perceived opposition to the Kuomintang Party (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) government led by Chiang Kai-shek. Most actual prosecutions, though, took place in 1950-1952. Most of those prosecuted were labeled by the Kuomintang as "bandit spies" meaning spies for Chinese communists, and punished as such.
However, there is no real evidence today for these prosecutions - the KMT were largely using these charges to remove opposition from the streets of taiwan and terrorize the population.

The KMT imprisoned mostly the Taiwan's island's intellectual and social elite out of fear that they might resist KMT rule or sympathize with communism. For example, the Formosan League for Reemancipation was a Taiwanese independence group established in 1947 which the KMT believed to be under Communist control leading to its members being arrested in 1950. The World United Formosans for Independence was persecuted for similar reasons. However, other prosecutions did not have such clear reasoning; in 1968 an author named Bo Yang was imprisoned for his choice of words in translating a Popeye comic strip.

Next to this now abandoned prison is a river. Near the river is a mound where hundreds of prisoners were executed. Their bodies were then thrown un-cermoniously into the water.

After martial law was lifted in 1987, the prison reverted to a military prison where only soldiers convicted under military law were held. The prison is now abandoned except for a small area which now serves as a human rights museum.

View from the outside:
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Speaker with military building identity number:
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Shots from the interior (basketball is for guards only, not prisoners):
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Corridor with cells on each side (political activist side):
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Refurbished cells for soldiers after 1987:
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Relative meeting area:
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Control room:
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Half door. Guards went through the full door, then the door was closed. The bottom half of the door was then opened for prisoners to crawl through:
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Toilet and sink in cells - raised for maximum humiliation:
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This is where prisoners were forced to work. They repaired military, train driver and other government workers' uniforms:
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Military court:
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Random find - this girl was walking around with a bunch of flowers, by herself, in an abandoned prison. Perhaps she was waiting for a bunch of photographers to turn up.
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Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the report and I look forward to reading all of yours!
I'll be back soon, but until then, stay safe and try not to get caught and end up in a place like the above.

CTL
 

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