Taipei, Sept. 4 (CNA) President Chen Shui-bian marked a ceremony of the publication of writings by Lei Chen Wednesday by saying that his government had exonerated the late democracy advocate and was grateful for his contributions to the nation's democratization and development.
President Chen made the remarks while commemorating the release of volumes of files compiled by the Academia Historica concerning the trial and imprisonment of Lei, the publisher of "Free China" magazine.
Lei, who was a prominent democratic movement activist in Taiwan in the 1960s, was arrested Sept. 4, 1960 for violating the Sedition Law and was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a military tribunal, although there appeared to be no evidence proving the charges. "With his insistence on the concept of freedom and democracy, Lei served as an important surveyor's pole for the post-war democratic movement in Taiwan," the president said.
From writing articles and editing the "Free China" magazine for the promotion of democracy to putting his ideas into practice, Lei made an unalterable mark on Taiwan's democratization, Chen said.
The president said that he was well aware of Lei's innocence when Chen was a legislator and had at the time urged relevant government agencies to examine files concerning Lei's case and his prison writings as requested by Lei's family.
After assuming the presidency, Chen went on, he personally instructed the Ministry of National Defense to look again for any of Lei's writings made while he was in prison, including any notes or memoirs that may have been kept secret.
Following his instructions, Chen said, a defense ministry task force recovered a large number of documents and files, including Lei's prison writings, diaries, memoirs and letters, as well as files from the then-Taiwan Garrison Command and other government agencies concerning Lei's case. This came after the task force poured over more than 160,000 archival documents and interviewed 49 people over a two-month period.
The president stressed that he would not allow history to be thrown into the trash and that justice must prevail.
Also addressing the ceremony, Vice President Annette Lu encouraged her compatriots to appreciate the results of Taiwan's democratization, which, she said, was achieved at the expense of many democratic activists' sacrifices.