Workers hung curtains and plastic barriers around the area and boarded-up windows to obscure the view of the site while security guards refused access to journalists and cordoned off roads with a cargo container.
New Delhi: China has done it again. It has shown its ruthlessness and total dislike for any criticism or anything that brings out its past blunders and human rights violations.
Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot said, "I'm totally shocked that Hong Kong University is currently destroying the Pillar of Shame…."
The famous statue at the University of Hong Kong marking the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 has been removed. The statue showed piled-up corpses to commemorate pro-democracy protesters killed by the Chinese authorities.
"It was one of the few remaining public memorials in Hong Kong commemorating the incident, which is a highly sensitive topic in China. Its removal comes as Beijing has increasingly been cracking down on political dissent in Hong Kong," says a BBC report.
Reports say workers hung curtains and plastic barriers around the area and boarded-up windows at 11 pm (Hong Kong) to obscure the view of the site while security guards refused access to journalists and cordoned off roads. A cargo container was reportedly put into service, and construction noise could be heard as workers pushed carts of rubble. The statue had vanished by 1 am (Dec 23, 2021).
The Pillar of Shame at Hong Kong University's campus came up about 24 years ago. "It is my private property, and the sculpture belongs to me personally… I will claim compensation for any damage to the sculpture. It is a disgrace and abuse and shows that Hong Kong has become a brutal place," said the Danish sculptor Jens.
"… And it's even more grotesque that they use the Western holiday, Christmas, to carry out the destruction of the artwork," he said in a statement.
The move is a major blow to an authoritarian regime against 'freedom movements' in Hong Kong. It was the only city under China's sovereignty where the Tiananmen Square massacre could be commemorated because of its promised freedoms and autonomy under the "one country, two systems" principle.
In the book 'The People's Republic of Amnesia', author Louisa Lim charts how the events of Jun 4, 1989, changed China, and how China changed the events of Jun 4 by 'rewriting its own history'. The book also introduces individuals whose lives were transformed by the events of Tiananmen Square, such as a founder of the Tiananmen Mothers, whose son was shot by martial law troops.
The book says, few people in China born after 1989 are even aware of the massacre, such is the regime's propaganda and control of information.
The BBC's Grace Tsoi, who was at the scene on Wednesday night, said there was a sound of cracking and drilling, but no one could see what was happening.
The Communist regime in Beijing has covered up the causes of the Covid-19 global crisis, silenced whistleblowers and rejected demand for an independent international investigation. It has also spoken far from the truth about the genocide of the Uyghurs and denied its forced organ harvesting.
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