For the past few years, China has cracked down on any attempts to commemorate the 1989 massacre of protesters. Now, the university says it posed “legal risks.”
A statue at the University of Hong Kong memorializing those who lost their lives in the Tiananmen Square massacre was removed from the campus and put into storage Thursday. The 26-foot red statue, called the Pillar of Shame, was sculpted in remembrance of when China’s military opened fire on pro-Democracy protestors on June 4, 1989. The statue depicts bodies piled up on each other. While Chinese officials said about 200 died in the massacre, other estimates put the number of victims in the hundreds or thousands, according to BBC. In 2017, British documents revealed that the death total was closer to 10,000. The university said they removed the statue due to fears of its “legal risks.” Jens Galschioet, the sculptor who created the Pillar of Shame, told the Associated Press this was a message to students that Hong Kong is cracking down on dissent. Galschioet has offered to take the statue back to Denmark. He also has gotten an offer to put the statue in a Washington, D.C., park across from the Chinese embassy. Canada, Norway and Taiwan have also offered him spots. For the past few years, China has cracked down more on any attempts to commemorate the massacre. Students at the Hong Kong university used to wash the statue every June 4 in remembrance, but the student union that organized the cleaning is now defunct.
