Lai urges unity against external and hostile forcesBy Chen Cheng-yu / Staff reporterPresident William Lai (賴清德) yesterday urged unity in the face of what he called external hostile forces. President William Lai, right, presents a posthumous presidential citation to a relative of former Formosa Political Prisoners Association chairman Liu Chin-shih during a memorial service in Taipei yesterday. Born in Yilan County’s Suao Township (蘇澳), Liu was only 12 years old when he and his father witnessed then-Taiwan governor Chen Yi’s (陳儀) troops shooting civilians, Lai said. Having seen the horrors of the 228 Massacre, the conviction that Taiwan must be independent was planted in Liu’s heart at that moment, Lai said. After Liu was released from prison, he and fellow survivors established the FPPA, Taiwan’s first association of political prisoners for supporting the families of the persecuted, which was a deeply moving effort, Lai said.
