A monument to the Tiananmen Square massacre was removed from a Hong Kong university Thursday, wiping out the last place of public commemoration and the best-known public remembrance on Chinese soil of the bloody 1989 crackdown.
File-University students clean the "Pillar of Shame" statue, a memorial for those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, at the University of Hong Kong Tuesday, June 4, 2019. A monument at a Hong Kong university that commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen massacre was boarded up by workers late Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2021, prompting fears over the future of the monument as the city's authorities crack down on dissent.
The 8-meter -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. “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.
The dismantling of the sculpture came days after pro-Beijing candidates scored a landslide victory in Hong Kong legislative elections, following amendments to election laws allowing the vetting of candidates to ensure they are “patriots” loyal to Beijing. He compared the removal of the sculpture to “driving a tank through Arlington Cemetery,” a burial ground for American war veterans.
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