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Two more Hong Kong universities on Friday removed public monuments to the 1989 Tiananmen protests in Beijing, following on the heels of the dismantling of a sculpture marking victims of the crackdown at another university earlier this week.
A 6.4 metre (20 foot) tall bronze “Goddess of Democracy” statue holding aloft a flame at Hong Kong’s Chinese University had been removed from a public piazza just before dawn.
The university said in a statement that the “unauthorised statue” had been taken away.
“Following an internal assessment, and as the manager of the university campus, CUHK has removed the statue,” it read.
The Hong Kong sculpture was modelled on a 10-metre (30 feet)white plaster and foam statue erected by students in Tiananmen Square in 1989 as a symbol of their resolve in pursuing liberty and democracy in China under Communist party rule.
“I feel heartbroken and shocked,” said Felix Chow, a former Chinese University student and district councillor.
“This statue represents the school environment is open. It’s a symbol of academic freedom … It makes people doubt whether the school can still ensure the space is free and people can speak freely,” he told Reuters.
Unlike mainland China, where Chinese authorities ban any memorials or public commemoration of June 4, Hong Kong had previously remained the only place on Chinese soil where such commemorations were permissible.
Hong Kong’s Lingnan University also took down a Tiananmen massacre wall relief sculpture, that also included a depiction of the “Goddess of Democracy”.
The bas-relief includes images of a line of tanks halting before a lone protester known as “tank man”; and victims shot by Chinese troops being carried away.
Pictures of the Lingnan site after the removal showed a bare wall and rubble on the ground.
The artist, Chen Weiming, who created both the statue and…
Source : france24
