What more do we know about 魏文賢?

Born in Nantou in 1931, Wei was only 23 when he was executed during Taiwan’s White Terror.

He had worked as a household registration clerk in Zhushan and earlier at a Taipei printing press. The court accused him of printing “seditious materials”—the Founding Documents of the PRC, its National Anthem, and political news reports—and of joining a small underground group called the “TL Branch.”

In October 1952, Wei was arrested. A year later, in September 1953, the Provincial Security Command sentenced him to death under the Act for the Punishment of Rebellion. His family’s property was confiscated, leaving only a small allowance. On January 29, 1954, he was executed by firing squad. That means the last 15 months of his life was spent in jail.

Decades later, in 1999, Wei’s family applied for state compensation. In 2001, the board agreed: while he had printed documents and attended meetings, there was no evidence of concrete rebellion. In December 2018, the Transitional Justice Commission formally overturned his conviction and sentence.

Wei’s story shows how the law was weaponized to silence dissent and extinguish young lives—and how truth and redress surfaced only decades later.