Hong-Kong:
Hong Kong’s oldest university launched an overnight operation on Thursday to dismantle a statue commemorating the dead in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square as the final blow to academic freedoms as China cracks down.
Jens Galschiot’s eight-meter-tall “Pillar of Shame” has been on the campus of the University of Hong Kong (HKU) since 1997, the year the former British colony was returned to China.
The sculpture features 50 tortured faces and tortured bodies piled on top of each other and commemorates democracy protesters killed by Chinese troops around Tiananmen Square in 1989.
His presence was a vivid illustration of Hong Kong’s freedoms compared to mainland China, where events in Tiananmen are heavily censored.
But Beijing is currently reshaping Hong Kong in its own authoritarian image after democracy protests two years ago and commemorating Tiananmen has effectively become illegal.
In October, HKU officials ordered the statue’s removal, citing new but unspecified legal risks.
They made good on that promise in the early hours of Thursday morning.
Clinking through the night
University staff used floor-to-ceiling plates and plastic barriers to hide the statue from view, as sounds of drilling and metal clanging could be heard throughout the night, an AFP reporter on the ground said.
Guards blocked journalists from getting close and tried to stop the media from filming.
Workers wearing hard hats could then be seen using a crane to maneuver much of the sculpture, wrapped in plastic, to a nearby container.
HKU confirmed that the image was removed and saved after the surgery was completed.
“The decision on the obsolete statue was based on outside legal advice and risk assessment in the interest of the university,” the university said.
The statement said no party had ever been allowed to display the statue and also cited the colonial-era Crimes Ordinance to justify its removal.
That law includes the crime of sedition and is increasingly being used by authorities – alongside a new national security law imposed by Beijing – to criminalize dissent.
‘Shocking’
Galschiot told AFP it was “strange” and “shocking” that the university was making a move on the statue, which it says remains his private property.
“This is a very expensive sculpture. So if they destroy it, we will of course sue them,” he added. “It’s not fair.”
Galschiot said he had offered to take the statue back and, with the help of lawyers, tried several ways to get in touch with the university.
HKU officials never contacted him or warned him about the action that began late Wednesday, he said.
The artist sent an email to supporters, encouraging them to “document everything that happens to the image”.
“We have made every effort to tell (HKU) that we are very happy to collect the statue and bring it to Denmark,” it reads.
Hong Kong used to be the only place in China where mass commemoration of Tiananmen was still tolerated.
For three decades, the city’s annual candlelight vigil on June 4 would attract tens of thousands.
With its slogans for democracy and ending one-party government in China, it became a symbol of the political freedoms Hong Kong enjoyed.
But that era is now over.
Authorities have banned the last two vigils due to both the coronavirus pandemic and security fears.
They have charged the leaders of the vigil organizers with subversion — a national security crime — and closed a Tiananmen museum the group used to run.
Dozens of activists who participated in both the banned Tiananmen vigils in 2020 and 2021 have been unlawfully prosecuted for the meeting.
Numerous opposition figures have been imprisoned or fled abroad, and the authorities have also embarked on a mission to rewrite history and make the city more “patriotic”.
(This story was not edited by DailyExpertNews staff and was generated automatically from a syndicated feed.)