The Kaohsiung Incident
On December 10, 1979 — International Human Rights Day — Formosa Magazine organized a massive public rally in Kaohsiung demanding democracy, an end to martial law, and the release of political prisoners. What began as a procession of torches down Chungshan Road escalated when authorities encircled the marchers with armored vehicles and tear gas, deploying riot police to forcefully disperse the crowd before launching mass arrests across the island over the following three weeks.
Core Dangwai figures including Shih Ming-teh, Huang Hsin-chieh, Annette Lu, Chen Chu, Lin Yi-hsiung, Yao Chia-wen, Chang Chun-hung, and Lin Hung-hsuan were indicted for "sedition" — a capital offense — and hauled before a military tribunal whose verdicts had historically been foregone conclusions. The trial proceeded under intense international scrutiny, however, with American congressional staff, Amnesty International observers, and foreign correspondents forcing the regime to open the courtroom to domestic press for the first time in a sedition case.
The defendants used that unprecedented opening to transform the dock into a pulpit: they delivered impassioned statement…
The defendants used that unprecedented opening to transform the dock into a pulpit: they delivered impassioned statements defending the legitimacy of peaceful assembly, cross-examined prosecution witnesses about torture during detention, and quoted the Republic of China Constitution back at their judges. Although the principal defendants received heavy sentences — from twelve years to life imprisonment — the Kaohsiung Incident instead sparked broader social sympathy and political awakening, deepened by the chilling February 1980 murder of Lin Yi-hsiung's mother and twin daughters while he was still in custody. The defendants' defense attorneys — including Chen Shui-bian, Frank Hsieh, Su Tseng-chang, You Ching, and Chang Chun-hsiung — later became key drivers of Taiwan's democratization, in many cases converting their courtroom experience directly into political careers.
This volume recreates the complete course of the Kaohsiung Incident, from the torchlit rally and the midnight arrests to the courtroom confrontations and the second-generation trauma that shaped an entire democratic cohort, presenting this pivotal event that changed Taiwan's destiny by turning a planned show of state strength into the opposition's most galvanizing public platform.
For the people of Formosa Magazine, the Kaohsiung gathering of December 10, 1979 was not a riot but a speech that should long since have been made in public. The magazine had launched in August and within four months had opened more than a dozen service offices across the island — a party in everything but name. The denial of their assembly permit, the repeated ransacking of those offices, and the detention and beating of two volunteers at the Gushan police station on December 9 all read, to them, as notice of what was coming. The march went ahead as planned, and the torches were lit on Chungshan Road. The order they remember is this: the encirclement came first, the violence second. Riot vehicles and tear gas sealed the procession into the traffic circle, and only once there was no way out did the pushing turn into a brawl. The island-wide arrests over the following three weeks confirmed their reading — the authorities did not want a rally dispersed, they wanted the Dangwai organization pulled up by the roots. Yet in the military courtroom the dock became the largest platform any of them would ever have: they rebutted the indictment point by point, named the torture inflicted during interrogation, and invoked the constitutional freedom of assembly. The photograph of Shih Ming-teh smiling at his own trial became the most reproduced image of the proceedings. The sentences were heavy; the words got out.
Torch-lit crowd at the Kaohsiung Human Rights Day rally, December 10, 1979, moments before riot police encircled the marchers with tear gas and armored vehicles.
Kaohsiung Museum of History
Military tribunal hearing of the Formosa defendants, March 1980 — the first sedition trial opened to domestic press, where defendants turned the dock into a democratic pulpit.
Central News Agency photo archive
Group photograph of the Formosa defense attorneys including Chen Shui-bian, Frank Hsieh, and Su Tseng-chang, whose courtroom careers launched Taiwan's next generation of democratic leadership.
New Formosa Foundation
Isle of Time