In a statement, the GIO said Sanlih, commissioned to produce a “Sixty Years after 2/28” documentary, passed a scene shot at Shanghai in 1948 for the one in Keelung.

“The documentary shows ‘great defects’ and therefore could not be accepted,” the GIO statement said.

A GIO review committee rejected the documentary, aired from March 3 to 7 to mark the 60th anniversary of the incident, in which tens of thousands of innocent people were massacred following a spontaneous riot in Taipei.

An infantry division was dispatched from China to suppress what was reported as a “rebellion.” The massacre started in Keelung on March 8.

The scene in question was picked from another documentary on loan from a 2/28 memorial museum, which Sanlih renamed “Blood Stains Keelung Harbor.”

Shown in the scene, however, were two uniformed policemen executing a Chinese communist sympathizer in Shanghai.

With the contract canceled, the GIO would not pay Sanlih the NT$960,000 commission, the statement said. “But,” it went on, “the GIO would not demand a penalty.”

On the other hand, the GIO stressed the Sanlih documentary does not reflect the “government stand.”

“Sanlih, not the GIO, owns the copyright of the documentary, which, therefore, does not reflect the government stand,” the statement added.

The United Daily News exposed the fabrication last Tuesday. Sanlih admitted an honest mistake and offered a public apology on the following day.

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