A Poignant Event Mourns Taiwan's Execution of an Innocent Man

Albert and Michelle here. We were in Tainan over the weekend for a poignant 25-year anniversary of Lu Cheng’s execution. It was organized so lovingly, with such thought and care, by the Taiwan Innocence Project. The event featured a screening of Tsai Tsung-Lung’s documentary Formosa Homicide Chronicle II: The Case of Lu Cheng (島國殺人紀事2), followed by speeches and a candlelight vigil. The Innocence Project also prepared a table of Lu’s favorite snacks for us to eat. Our six-year-old munched on a Taiwanese equivalent of Cheetos, while we ate poria cake, which is chewy, lightly sweet, and made of rice flour.

Movingly, the Taiwan Innocence Project had organized the event in Erkong Military Dependents’ Village—now a cultural park, but once the neighborhood where Lu and his family lived. Many of Lu’s childhood friends were there: people who had grown up alongside him, who still remembered him as a boy. The familiarity of the place le…