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.