Hong Kong | A statue in memory of Tiananmen unbolted

(Hong Kong) The ‘Pillar of Shame’, a statue honoring victims of the Tiananmen crackdown, was removed from the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Thursday after 24 years at the scene, removing a symbol freedoms enjoyed by the city before 2020.

“The decision regarding the old statue was made on the basis of an external legal opinion and a risk assessment for the best interests of the university,” HKU said in a statement, as the groups and places commemorating the June 4, 1989 crackdown in Beijing have become the target of the draconian national security law imposed by Beijing.

Hong Kong has long been the only place in China where the commemoration of the Tiananmen events was tolerated. Every year, HKU students cleaned the statue installed on their campus in 1997 to honor the victims of these events.

But Beijing left its authoritarian mark on the former British colony after the large and sometimes violent protests of 2019, imposing a national security law that criminalized virtually any form of dissent.

In October, HKU officials ordered the removal of the eight-meter-tall sculpture of a tangle of 50 bodies deformed by pain, already citing legal risks, without specifying which ones.

The “Pillar of Shame”, eight meters high, was sheltered from view on Wednesday behind tarpaulins and barriers before being unbolted Thursday morning to be stored elsewhere, according to the university.

“Shocking”

In its press release, the institution ensures that no one had obtained formal authorization to exhibit this statue and cites an ordinance dating from the colonial era to justify its removal.

This law includes the crime of sedition and has recently been increasingly used by authorities – alongside the new National Security Law – to suppress dissent.

While workers were busy around the statue in the night, the author of the work, the Danish Jens Galschiot, interviewed by AFP, found “strange” and “shocking” that the university is doing so. take to sculpture, which, according to him, remains private property.

“This sculpture is really expensive. So if they destroy it, then of course we’re going to pursue them, ”he added,“ it’s not fair ”.

Mr. Galschiot says he tried to contact the university with the help of lawyers and offered to resume his work. He also assures that HKU officials never warned him of the dismantling.

The removal of the statue was decried by exiled pro-democracy activists, still very followed by their many subscribers on social networks.

Nathan Law, a former elected pro-democracy refugee in the United Kingdom, assured that the statue will continue to live in people’s memory. “The #PillarOfShame has been removed, but the memory survives. We have to remember what happened on June 4, 1989, ”he tweeted.

“Shame on the University of Hong Kong for destroying the history and collective memory of the Tiananmen Square massacre. You should be condemned to the pillar of shame, ”wrote Brian Leung, an exiled pro-democracy activist in the United States.

Wang Dan, one of the former student leaders of Tiananmen now living in the United States, was also outraged by the debunking, describing on Facebook “a despicable act in an attempt to erase this bloodstained chapter of history. “.

Since Beijing’s grip, dissenting voices have gradually died down on Hong Kong campuses, once oases of freedom not subject to the censorship that permeates mainland Chinese faculties. Protests were banned, many student unions blacklisted, and new “national security” courses introduced.

For 30 years, a candlelight vigil was held in Hong Kong for the anniversary of Tiananmen, bringing together tens of thousands of people. With its slogans for democracy, this meeting was a symbol of the freedom of expression enjoyed by the former British colony.

Authorities have banned the last two vigils, citing the pandemic and security issues as reasons. The main organizers were arrested for subversion, and a museum on June 4, 1989 was closed.

The resumption of control of the city also resulted in an electoral reform leading to a poll, last Sunday, reserved for “patriotic” candidates acquired to the Beijing regime for the local Legislative Council.