Jingmei Human Rights Park reopens renovated military courtroom to reflect on authoritarian past.

The military courtroom at the National Human Rights Museum's Jingmei Memorial Park officially reopened to the public yesterday. This spatial relaunch is not merely an update of hardware facilities, but a profound recreation of historical memory. Through new exhibition techniques and the introduction of digital audio and video, this space—which once tried countless dissidents and determined the fates of countless individuals—has now been transformed into an important educational venue that allows the public to experience and reflect upon authoritarian history immersively. The Jingmei Park plays a pivotal role in Taiwan's transitional justice project, having witnessed the bumpy road of Taiwan's transition from martial law to democracy, with every corner bearing heavy historical memories.

Inside the newly reopened military courtroom, the museum has specifically added interview footage and audio records of several important political victims, including Chen Chung-tung, Tsui Hsiao-ping, Chen Chin-sheng, and Yeh Jung-guang. These precious oral histories and images have been skillfully compiled and displayed within the courtroom space. Through the personal accounts of those involved, visiting members of the public are able to look past cold legal articles and historical documents, directly touching upon the isolation, fear, and indomitable dignity experienced by victims when facing the state apparatus and military trials. This exhibition strategy of "restoring" historical figures to their authentic contexts bridges the spatiotemporal gap between modern people and the history of the White Terror.

Taking the victims included in these interview records as examples, each person has a heartbreaking story of profound significance to their era. Whether intellectuals, cultural workers persecuted during the White Terror period, or indigenous political victims, what they faced in the military courtroom were interrogations lacking due legal process. Through their visual testimonies, the military courtroom is no longer just an abstract historical term, but a concrete venue filled with solid evidence of human rights violations. Such an exhibition approach helps the general public break away from single historical narratives and understand the comprehensive trauma inflicted upon Taiwanese society by authoritarian rule from the perspective of diverse life histories.

Recreating the original appearance of the military courtroom while combining it with modern audiovisual technology holds the profound significance of providing a public space for reflecting on human rights values. Today, many years after democratization, Taiwanese society enjoys freedom of speech and the protection of the rule of law; however, the fruits of democracy did not fall from the sky, but were exchanged for the blood, tears, and freedom of countless predecessors. The reopening of the Jingmei Park's military courtroom serves precisely to remind the public that transitional justice is not merely a policy promoted by government departments, but requires all citizens to maintain sensitivity and vigilance toward human rights values in their daily lives, preventing any form of abuse of power from happening again.

In the future, the National Human Rights Museum expects to use this reopened military courtroom as one of the core bases for human rights education, combining school education with social outreach activities to bring more of the younger generation into the park. Through on-site visits and audiovisual interactions, young students will be able to more concretely feel the personal pain of having human rights stripped away under an authoritarian regime, thereby deepening their beliefs in democratic rule of law and human rights protection. This exhibition space renovation project is not only an account given to history, but also a commitment to the future, ensuring that Taiwanese society will forever remember these unforgettable historical footsteps.