70 years after Taiwan’s ‘White Terror’, relatives of victims still seeking justice

For Pan Hsin-hsing the sight and smell of lilies held a particular horror for many years – the pungent flowers decorated the room where his executed father lay before the funeral.

He was just six years old when Pan Mu-chih, a doctor and local politician, was arrested, tortured and killed in a 1947 massacre that was the precursor to years of political purges in Taiwan, known as the “White Terror”.

A last note from his father was scribbled on a cigarette pack given to him by a sympathetic jailer and smuggled out to the family. “Don’t be sad, I die for the residents of our city. I die with no regret,” it read.

On Tuesday, Pan will speak at a national commemoration for the victims of the crackdown by troops under nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, whose Kuomintang party governed Taiwan at the time.

On behalf of many who lost loved ones, he will call for long-delayed justice.

Pan’s father was a critic of the KMT and was killed by a firing squad alongside other local politicians in southern Chiayi city, where there were anti-government riots.