The Kaohsiung Prison riot was a hostage situation that occurred at Kaohsiung Prison in Taiwan starting 11 February 2015. Six inmates, whose ringleader was a member of Bamboo Union,[3] seized weapons, including assault rifles, and took the warden hostage for a 14-hour high-profile stand-off, which caught media attention nationwide. The group of inmates eventually committed mass suicide.[4] The inmates protested that the former President of the Republic of ChinaChen Shui-bian, who jailed for 20 years for money laundering, was granted medical parole due to his status as a political prisoner[5][6] while other prisoners were denied. This is the first ever prison riot with officials held hostage in the history of Taiwan.[7][8]
Aftermath
A subsequent investigation found that the head prison warden was unaware of the hostage crisis for 30 minutes after it began.[9] On 26 February 2015, the Ministry of Justice announced that 23 prison officials had been reprimanded for their handling of the incident.[10] The head warden was demoted and given a demerit. Demerits were also served to two of his top aides, and to the head of the Agency of Corrections.[11]
By August 2016, the head warden, deputy warden and head guard were no longer in their respective positions and had been impeached by the Control Yuan.[12]
Popular culture
Taiwanese media compared[13] this riot to the 1988 Seoul prison jailbreak in which Ji Kang-hun [ko] escaped to protest the seven-year sentence of Chun Kyeong-hwan, the brother of South Korean president Chun Doo-hwan, who was convicted of embezzlement and tax evasion.[14] Ji thought it unfair that he received a longer sentence for stealing a smaller amount of money. The Korean movie The Holiday [ko] starring Lee Sung-jae was based on this incident.