Taiwan's media catastrophe and the "April 6th Incident", 1945-1949

After WWII, the Kuomintang (KMT) government, which represented the Allied to take over Taiwan, introduced the “allocution by one political party” system into Taiwan and gradually tightened its grip on the freedom of speech. Especially after the 228 incident in 1947, KMT authorities went to great lengths to shut down newspaper offices and responded to protests by imprisoning, torturing, and executing intellectuals and community leaders.

Soon afterward, the April 6th Incident occurred in the spring of 1949. Some students of NTU and NTNU were arrested on sedition charges and were either executed or sentenced to prison. To add insult to injury, the KMT government soon declared martial law（temporary）on May 20th, which further aggravated the restriction of the freedom of speech.