Shi Mingde ( Chinese 施明德 , Pinyin : Shí Míngdé ; born January 15, 1941 , Kaohsiung ) is a Taiwanese politician and dissident .
| Shi Mingde | |||||||
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| 施明德 Shih ming-teh | |||||||
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| Predecessor | Xu Xinliang | ||||||
| Successor | Xu Xinliang | ||||||
| Birth | January 15, 1941 (78 years old) Japan Empire , Taiwan | ||||||
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At the age of 6, he witnessed Incident 228 . In 1962 , at the age of 21, Shi Mingde was arrested and charged with creating an anti-government student organization, Taiwan Independence League. He was sentenced to life imprisonment , later the term was reduced to 15 years. In 1977, he was released and joined the opposition movement Tanwai (Out of Party).
In December 1979, Shi Mingde became one of the organizers of anti-government protests ( Kaohsiung incident ), was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment again. He was released after the democratization of the country's political life in 1990 .
Shi Mingde was elected to the Legislative Yuan (Parliament) of Taiwan three times, including in 1992 and 1996 from Tainan County and in 1998 from Taipei County. In 1992, he was arrested for the third time; he spent 41 days in prison for organizing speeches demanding direct presidential elections.
In the early 1990s, Shi Mingde became one of the leaders of the Democratic Progressive Party , from July 18, 1994 to March 23, 1996 - party chairman. Since his political program did not find support among other party leaders, in 1996 he resigned as chairman, and in 2000 left the DPP and became its consistent critic. In 2006, Shi Mingde launched a campaign to collect signatures for the resignation of the president from the DPP Chen Shui-bian .