Human rights movements in Taiwan were born as a resistance against the public power of the government, which was in violation against human rights, in order to demand the strengthening of human rights protection. Under this background, the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (hereafter referred to as TAHR) was founded in 1984 and was one of the major community human rights organizations before the end of the martial law era. Some of the community or political oppositional party-affiliated human rights organizations in Taiwan that had collaborated with TAHR in the advocacy of human rights ideals include: the 228 Justice and Peace Promotion Association that advocated the vindication of the February 28 Incident, which had disbanded after the movement had come to a halt and none of the related historical records had been preserved. TAHR has been the longest-running organization and spans the martial law era through the liberalization and democratization development of Taiwan to become a fully free country. The organization has participated long-term in the advocacy of liberal and democratic reforms, as well as political and social movements that promote human rights concepts and safeguard human rights. Perspectives and information from the public's or the oppositional political parties' points of view will be able to provide a more complete picture of the human rights development in Taiwan and help with understanding the evolution of human rights concepts. The relevant digital archiving work and the building up of a database by TAHR will provide valuable information for the research on the society, politics, history, law, and human rights aspects of Taiwan.

The focus of this project is the digitization of the various human rights movements and organizational activity records from the key human rights organizations in Taiwan, as well as the creation of a Taiwan human rights database. Moreover, the cross-reference of the information preserved by TAHR presents a record of human rights development in Taiwan that offers room for dialog when compared to the official archived information. In addition, the Taiwan human rights movement database introduces the ideals and standards of international human rights so that the human rights discourse of the Taiwanese people can connect with that of the international society. With the development of the information society, violations against human rights will be coming from the public sector, the business sector, and even the civil society. The digitization and informationization of past civil society human rights records will be able to help the various sectors to develop more detailed interaction and negotiation foundations. If human rights historical records from the civil society can be cross-referenced with the official archive records, it will provide more diverse angles for deliberation so that the research on human rights development in Taiwan can take place within an environment with a wider choice of information and a broader perspective.