An eight-meter-tall sculpture in memory of victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre was surrounded by security guards on Wednesday (22), on the campus of the University of Hong Kong, where it is installed, and large pieces of the work were removed in followed.
Called “Pillar of Shame”, the monument is signed by the Dane Jens Galschiot, and depicts 50 anguished faces and torn bodies piled on top of one another.
He has been on the campus of Hong Kong’s oldest university since 1997, the year the former British colony was partially returned to China by the UK.
In October of this year, officials at the institution ordered the removal of the sculpture, which honors pro-democracy protesters killed by Chinese troops in 1989.
The monument was surrounded by barriers this week. Plastic sheets were placed over the work, and security guards blocked the approach and the recording of videos by journalists. Images show workers carrying pieces of the work, and a cargo container was on site.
Contacted by the AFP news agency, the university declined to comment.
The artist claims to find it “strange” and “shocking” that the university is getting ready to withdraw the work, which, according to him, remains his property. “It’s a very expensive sculpture. So if they destroy it, of course I’ll sue them,” he told AFP.
In the British newspaper The Guardian, Galschiot said he had tried to contact the university several times, saying he wanted to retrieve the work and take it to Denmark, but got no response.
The semi-autonomous region of Hong Kong was the only place in the country where tributes to this historic event, banned in China, were tolerated. But with the Chinese government’s growing offensive against any form of opposition in the former British colony, the vigil was banned.
China has never transparently accounted for the violence in Tiananmen Square in 1989. The official count says there were around 300 killed, most of them soldiers, but human rights groups and witnesses say thousands of people must have been killed. murdered.
In June, the Hong Kong park where the annual vigil marking the anniversary of the massacre is held was empty for the first time in 32 years. Police officers blocked access to Victoria Park, which prevented the traditional candlelight demonstration that is organized in the early evening.
The watch ban came at a time of growing international concern over the suppression of liberties in Hong Kong, especially through a national security law imposed by Beijing last year that is reshaping the city in the Chinese image.
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