A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil was removed early Thursday, …
A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil was removed early Thursday, wiping out the city’s last place of public commemoration of the bloody 1989 crackdown. For some at the University of Hong Kong, the move reflected the erosion of the relative freedoms they have enjoyed compared to mainland China. The 26-foot -tall Pillar of Shame, which depicts 50 torn and twisted bodies piled on top of each other, was made by Danish sculptor Jens Galschioet to symbolize the lives lost during the military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. Billy Kwok, a University of Hong Kong student, said the Pillar of Shame has been treated as part of the university by many who studied there. It had been standing at the university for more than two decades. „It’s the symbol of whether (there is still)… freedom of speech in Hong Kong,“ he said after the sculpture was taken away. The university said it had asked that the sculpture be put in storage because it could pose „legal risks.“ „No party has ever obtained any approval from the university to display the statue on campus, and the university has the right to take appropriate actions to handle it at any time,“ it said in a statement after its removal.
