Lin Yi-hsiung

Lin Yi-hsiung (; born 24 August 1941) is a Taiwanese politician and lawyer. He was a major leader of the democratization movement in Taiwan. He was first exposed to politics in 1976 while serving as attorney for (1908–1985) who sued the ruling Kuomintang for electoral fraud. Lin was elected a member of Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council in Kuo's old electorate in 1977.

Early life and education Lin was born on August 24, 1941, in Taihoku Prefecture. After high school, he attended law school at National Taiwan University and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) in 1964. Later, in 1987, he completed graduate studies in the United States at Harvard University, where he earned a Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Lin family massacre

On 13 December 1979, Lin was arrested for his involvement in the Kaohsiung Incident.

Condolences and photos of the victims, 2019 anniversary memorial service at Gikong Presbyterian Church. Around noon on 28 February, an unknown assailant or assailants broke into Lin's home off Xinyi Road in Taipei and stabbed Yu and Lin's three daughters. Yu and two of the daughters, 6-year-old twins Lin Liang-chun and Lin Ting-chun , died of their wounds; the eldest daughter, 9-year-old Judy Linton (Lin Huan-chun), was badly wounded after being stabbed multiple times and was the only survivor of the incident. The authorities claimed to know nothing about the murders, even though Lin's house was under tight 24-hour police surveillance; because of this, it has been speculated the murders were committed as a warning to other pro-democracy activists. 28 February is a date generally understood by Taiwanese as intended to evoke the incident in 1947.

text=I don't know if [the murderer] is still alive now. But I don't hate him, because love is our best weapon. — Fang Su-min, quoted in 2002 Taipei Times article although an American family friend of the Lins, J. Bruce Jacobs, was officially accused and placed under "police protection", he later was released without charges and expelled from Taiwan. Investigative journalist David E. Kaplan concluded the "Iron Blood Patriots", a criminal gang, may have been responsible, under the auspices of Chiang Hsiao-wu.

Afterwards Fang moved to the US with her eldest daughter in 1981; She is now a renowned pianist and gospel singer in Taiwan. After returning to Taiwan in 1983, Fang was elected to the Legislative Yuan in December of that year. Chen Ding-nan stated the murder of Lin's mother and daughters also motivated him to start his political career.

In August 1984, Lin left jail on parole. Desmond Tutu met with Lin during a visit to Taiwan in 2007, urging forgiveness and publicity for Lin's story.

President Tsai Ing-wen attends the annual memorial service at Gikong Presbyterian Church on Feb 28, 2017. The Gikong or Yi-Kwang Presbyterian Church was erected on the site of the former Lin family residence off Hsinyi Road. A memorial service is held annually at the church on February 28. Gikong was founded to provide religious services and comfort for the families of dissidents affected by the Kaohsiung Incident, and later expanded its mission to all political victims.

Reinvestigated The case was reopened in 2009 by the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office; it was discovered that a call had been placed from the Lin's home to a restaurant shortly after the murders, but the caller did not speak. The investigation was criticized as a sham, intended only "to prove that security agencies were not behind [the crimes]."

In 2018, the Transitional Justice Commission announced it would investigate the massacre using documents from the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau. Some of those records had been damaged in the wake of Typhoon Nari in 2001. For other records belonging to the National Security Bureau, it was not certain that all the requested documents could be declassified.