Last Monument To Tiananmen Massacre In HK Removed

A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil was removed early Thursday, wiping out the city’s last place of public commemoration of the bloody 1989 crackdown.

Photo Insert: The "Pillar of Shame" was the last monument dedicated to the victims of the Tiananmen Square Massacre standing in Hong Kong.

For some at the University of Hong Kong, the move reflected the erosion of the relative freedoms they have enjoyed compared to mainland China, Zen Soo reported for the Associated Press (AP).

The 8-meter (26-foot) -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.

”They are sending a signal to the students that it is over with the (Hong Kong) democracy movement and that it is over with free speech in Hong Kong,” Galschioet said of the monument’s removal.

The university said it asked that the sculpture, which had been standing on its campus for more than two decades, be put in storage because it could pose “legal risks.”

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