Pai Ya-tsan (Chinese: 白雅燦; pinyin: Bái Yǎcàn; born 8 January 1945) is a Taiwanese political activist. During his imprisonment, Amnesty International designated Pai a prisoner of conscience.
Raised in Changhua County, Pai studied law at National Chengchi University.[1] His political involvement began in 1969, campaigning for Huang Hsin-chieh, who won election to the Legislative Yuan.[1] Suspected of sedition, Pai was jailed for four months in 1971, then released.[1][2] In 1973, he supported a number of tangwai candidates for Taipei City Council.[1] Pai chose to contest the legislative election of 1975, but was arrested in October for distributing campaign fliers which contained 29 questions addressed to Chiang Ching-kuo, as well as political policies suggested by Pai.[2][3] The next month, he went to trial and was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court.[4] While imprisoned he went on hunger strikes to protest foreign policies and political repression.[5][6] In February 1986, legislators Chiang Peng-chien and Fang Su-min petitioned for Pai's release.[7] Instead, Pai's prison sentence was commuted to fifteen years upon the lifting of martial law in July 1987.[8] Throughout the year, Pai's health continued to decline,[8] and he was released in April 1988.[9]
In November 2018, Pai contested the Changhua County magistracy as an independent candidate.[10]
2018 Changhua County magistrate election results[11]
|
No.
|
Candidate
|
Party
|
Votes
|
Percentage
|
|
1 |
Wei Ming-ku |
Democratic Progressive Party |
283,269
|
39.87%
|
|
2 |
Wang Huei-mei |
Kuomintang |
377,795
|
53.18%
|
|
3 |
Pai Ya-tsan |
Independent |
7,402
|
1.04%
|
|
4 |
Huang Wen-ling |
Independent |
34,690
|
4.88%
|
|
5 |
Hung Min-xiong (洪敏雄) |
Independent |
7,263
|
1.02%
|
|
Total voters |
1,031,222
|
Valid votes |
710,419
|
Invalid votes |
|
Voter turnout |
68.89%
|
References