On April 7, 1989, Taiwanese social movement advocate Cheng Nan-jung (Nylon Cheng) lit gasoline in his office as Editor-in-Chief of "Freedom Era Weekly" and burned to death by self-immolation. This shocked all of Taiwan's society, and Chinese people around the world.

Cheng Nan-jung was born in 1947, the year in which the February 28 Incident occurred. He was half-mainlander, half-Taiwanese local (with his father coming from Mainland China and his mother being from Taiwan). During that time, under the protection of their neighbors, his family was spared from a wave of Taiwanese locals' retaliations against mainlanders. This experience opened Cheng's eyes to political realities at an early age. Later on, he strongly advocated for Taiwan's independence, believing independence to be the only way for Taiwan to become truly democratic and to prevent the February 28th Incident from happening again.

In the 1980s, Taiwan's Dangwai ("Outside the Party", that is, non-aligned with the Kuomintang) movement flourished. During this period, Cheng Nan-jung founded the Dangwai movement magazine "Freedom Era Weekly", advocating the fight for 100% freedom and striving to promote an atmosphere of democracy and freedom. Over its five years, eight months of publication, "Liberty Era Weekly" set a record for the greatest number of times a publication was banned and suspended for disregarding the speech restraints set by the Kuomintang (National People's Party, KMT) government.

After the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, Cheng Nan-jung still opposed the one-party dominance of the KMT government, and continued to initiate political actions. He declared again and again, "I am Cheng Nan-jung, and I stand for Taiwan independence." In 1988, Cheng published the Constitution for the Republic of Taiwan in his magazine. On January 21st, 1989, Cheng was charged with insurrection and summoned to court. He refused to go into custody, vowing: "The KMT can only capture my corpse, not my person." After that, he locked himself in the magazine's Editor-in-Chief office with 3 barrels of gasoline ready. In the early morning of April 7th, when the police forcibly entered the magazine office and tried to arrest him, Cheng set himself on fire and died. With this, he became a martyr for free thought.

The death of Cheng Nan-jung gave impetus to many reforms in Taiwan. Later on, he was called "Taiwan's nation-founding martyr". In 2016, the Executive Yuan designated April 7th as "Freedom of Expression Day", to commemorate Cheng Nan-jung's death and his spirit of defending freedom of speech with his life.

Reference Materials: [Nylon Cheng Liberty Foundation] (http://www.nylon.org.tw/); [聯合報("United Daily News")(Chinese)] (https://web.archive.org/web/20170103005153/https://udn.com/news/story/7314/2185406); [World United Formosans for Independence] (https://www.wufi.org.tw/追悼鄭南榕烈士/)