｜ December 2007: Huang Hua pictured with the cell he was once imprisoned in at the National Human Rights Museum in Jingmei. Photographer: Chiu Wan-hsing The Taiwan Independence Timetable caused Huang Hua to be jailed for the 4th time. It wasn’t until the abolition of the Betrayers Punishment Act in May 1991 and the amendment of Article 100 of the Criminal Code to abolish the offense of seditious speech in May 1992 that Huang Hua was finally declared innocent, free from the crime of insurrection that hung over his head for the first half of his life. Huang Hua, was born Huang Ming-tsung in Keelung in 1939. He was among the first students to study Bopomofo, or Mandarin Phonetic Symbols. He was once deeply proud of his Chinese identity and 68 changed his name to Huang Hua as a result (hua being a word representing Chinese ethnicity). By the time of his release at the age of 52 in 1991, he had been imprisoned for political reasons for a total of 23 years. The first time Huang Hua was sent to prison was in December 1963. Then aged 24, he was reported by the police as a “class A hooligan” and jailed for two and a half years on Liuqiu Island without a judicial trial. The arrest was to prevent Huang Hua, who often campaigned for Tangwai candidates, to run for councilor. Chapter 2 December 2007: Huang Hua spent most of his life before the age of 52 in prison for his political convictions. In the latter half of his life, he was finally able to start a family and enjoy the freedom of marching on the street with his family. Photographer: Chiu Wan-hsing The second time Huang Hua was jailed was in 1967, just a year after his release the first time. Huang Hua happened upon a copy of the Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation, which was being passed around in secret. Deeply moved by the Declaration of Formosan Self-Salvation, he planned and co-founded the pro-independence Society to Promote the Unity of Taiwanese Youth. In a heavily surveilled society, he was quickly charged with insurrection and sentenced to 10 years. He was pardoned and released two years early fol- ｜ Lifting of the Martial Law: Defending Absolute Freedom of Speech lowing Chiang Kai-shek’s death in 1975. However, it would be even less time before he got imprisoned for the third time. Soon after he was pardoned released from prison, Huang Hua was invited to be the deputy editor-inchief of Taiwan Political Theory. Unfortunately, Taiwan Political Theory was quickly forced to shut down. In July 1976, Huang Hua was charged with “criticizing the government, provoking the public, and revealing intent of insurrection” and sentenced to 10 years. The 2 years of early release from his previous pardon were tacked on, resulting in a total sentence of 12 years. Co-founder of Taiwan Political Theory and Tangwai councilor Kang Ning-hsiang once said in an interview that Huang Hua only served as deputy editorin-chief for two months, during which he wrote 4 articles. Counting titles and punctuation marks, those articles amounted to just 16,000 words, but they caused Huang Hua 4,383 days of prison time. In other words, he was sentenced to one day of jail time for every 3.7 words he wrote. His fourth sentence came after the lifting of the martial law. This time, it had to do with the New Nation Movement and the Taiwanese Independence Timetable. This time, he enjoyed a slightly longer period of freedom than the previous occasion, but it was still just a mere two years. Huang Hua lamented how his youth, which was supposed to be the finest and most important time in his life, withered away in prison. It can be hard to adjust to the outside world after years of monotony in prison. For example, after Huang Hua’s release in 1975, he was interviewed by Huang Hsin-chieh and agreed a time to start work at Taiwan Political Theory, but Huang Hua did not show up at the magazine office at the appointed time. The magazine staff waited for a long time, only to discover that he had already arrived for some time but was standing downstairs staring at the intercom, which he had no idea how to use. 69