The World - News from July 8, 1987

As lawmakers applauded and cheered, Taiwan’s Parliament unanimously passed a bill lifting the country’s 38-year-old martial law. Some opposition members charged during the debate, however, that new national security measures enacted last month are almost as oppressive as martial law. President Chiang Ching-kuo, son of the late Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek, is expected to sign the measure lifting martial law this week. Martial law, which bans formation of new political parties and allows civilians to be tried by military courts, was imposed in 1949 when the Nationalists fled to Taiwan after losing a civil war to the Communists in China.