Site of the Pillar of Shame at city’s oldest university under guard after workmen cut up statue
Hong Kong’s oldest university and the territory’s authorities have been accused of rewriting history after cutting up and removing a statue mourning those killed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.
The erasure of the memorial from where it had stood for nearly 25 years came as Beijing has intensified its targeting of political dissent in Hong Kong since the Covid pandemic.
Continue reading...A monument at a Hong Kong university that commemorated the 1989 Tiananmen Square killings was boarded up by workers. Drilling sounds and loud clanging could be heard coming from the boarded-up site, which was patrolled by guards, as workers barricaded the Pillar of Shame monument at the University of Hong Kong. The 8-metre-tall (26ft) Pillar of Shame, which depicts 50 torn and twisted bodies piled on top of each other, was created by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiøt to symbolise those who lost their lives during the Tiananmen Square crackdown. Galschiøt said he believed the sculpture had been cut up into pieces, and that he was considering pursuing legal action to save it.
Continue reading...Streaming channel went live this month, but without an episode in which the family visit China
An episode of the Simpsons in which the cartoon American family visit Tiananmen Square is absent from Disney’s streaming channel in Hong Kong, at a time when authorities are clamping down on dissent.
The missing episode adds to concerns that mainland-style censorship is becoming the norm in the international business hub, ensnaring global streaming giants and other major tech companies.
Continue reading...Jens Galschiot wants to bring sculpture back after decades in Hong Kong but fears arrest under national security law
The Danish sculptor of a statue that commemorates pro-democracy protesters killed during China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown has asked Hong Kong authorities for immunity from a national security law so he can take it back to Denmark.
Jens Galschiot loaned the eight-metre high, two-tonne copper sculpture called Pillar of Shame to a local civil society group, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China, in perpetuity.
Continue reading...Prominent pro-democracy group Hong Kong Alliance voted to disband after many of its leaders were arrested
The Hong Kong pro-democracy group that organised three decades of vigils commemorating the victims of Beijing’s Tiananmen Square massacre has voted to disband in the face of China’s sweeping clampdown on dissent.
The Hong Kong Alliance was one of the most prominent symbols of the city’s former political plurality, and its dissolution on Saturday is the latest illustration of how quickly China is remoulding the business hub in its own authoritarian image.
Continue reading...The career of the Observer’s former China correspondent who died last week, was marked by a willingness to review his convictions
Jonathan Mirsky, the Observer’s former China correspondent who has died aged 88, was acutely aware of the mounting danger from the bullets criss-crossing Tiananmen Square on 4 June 1989 as units of the People’s Liberation Army were sent in to break up the protests. He was aware too that he desperately needed to get his copy to London.
Writing about the experience 30 years later, Mirsky admitted that few at first had any sense of the scale of the violence that was being unleashed either on the students in the square. All that, however, was to change quickly.
Continue reading...Longstanding group accused of being ‘agent of foreign forces’ and is asked for information about its membership
Hong Kong’s national security police are investigating the organisers of a vigil commemorating the Tiananmen Square massacre for alleged foreign collusion offences.
Chow Hang-tung, the vice-chair of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, said authorities had written to core members of the longstanding group demanding information related to their foreign links within 14 days.
Continue reading...As China marks the centenary of its ruling party, we examine key episodes in its tempestuous history, including the Long March, Mao’s purges and Xi Jinping’s rise to the top of an emerging superpower
Anyone visiting First Meeting Hall in Shanghai, the museum recreating the site of the first conclave of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) in 1921, will also find themselves in one of the city’s fanciest districts.
Continue reading...Company blames ‘human error’ after users in US, Germany, Singapore and France reported no results shown on the crackdown’s anniversary
Microsoft has blamed human error after its search engine, Bing, blocked image and video results for the phrase “tank man” – a reference to the iconic image of a lone protester facing down tanks during the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square – on the 32nd anniversary of the military crackdown.
Users reported that no results were shown for the search query in countries including the US, Germany, Singapore, France and Switzerland, according to Reuters and Vice News.
Continue reading...Officers mobilised to break up the once-traditional events to mark the brutal crackdown against dissent in China 32 years ago
Hong Kong police have arrested a prominent barrister for allegedly promoting an unauthorised assembly on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, as thousands of officers were deployed to enforce a ban on protests and gatherings across the city.
On Friday, Hong Kong barrister and activist Chow Hang Tung, vice-chairwoman of the group which organises annual vigils for the victims of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protesters, was arrested, two group members said.
Continue reading...For years, Hong Kong has been one of just two cities in China allowed to mark anniversaries of the deadly crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989. This year, however, Hong Kong authorities banned the vigil for the second consecutive year, citing the coronavirus pandemic. Critics say the authorities are using the pandemic as an excuse to silence pro-democracy voices. Last year thousands of people gathered in Victoria Park despite the ban, and weeks later police arrested more than 20 activists who had taken part in the vigil. Organisers have urged people to mark the anniversary in private this year by lighting a candle at home
Continue reading...Media figure punished over pro-democracy rally as authorities again cite coronavirus restrictions to prohibit traditional Tiananmen vigil
Jailed Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been sentenced to an extra 14 months in prison over his conviction for an unauthorised assembly in 2019, alongside fellow activists who were also jailed for up to 18 months.
The case came as a separate ruling suggested speaking critically in foreign media interviews could breach the national security laws, and just a week before the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Authorities have banned a vigil for the second year in a row, citing pandemic concerns about crowding despite allowing other crowded events in recent days.
Continue reading...Campaigner Simon Cheng, granted asylum in UK, says shadow parliament would send ‘clear signal’ to Beijing
Hong Kong pro-democracy activists are discussing a plan to create an unofficial parliament-in-exile to preserve democracy and send a message to China that freedom cannot be crushed, campaigner Simon Cheng has said.
Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to Chinese rule in 1997, was convulsed by months of often violent, pro-democracy and anti-China demonstrations last year, resisting Chinese interference in its promised freedoms and posing the biggest political crisis for Beijing since the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
Continue reading...Meetings on Tiananmen Square massacre and Hong Kong crisis were taken down because Communist government complained
Zoom has admitted it suspended the accounts of human rights activists at the behest of the Chinese government and suggested it will block any further meetings that Beijing complains are illegal.
On Thursday the video conferencing platform was accused of disrupting or shutting down the accounts of three activists who held online events relating to the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary or discussing the crisis in Hong Kong. None were given an explanation by Zoom.
Continue reading...Protesters in Hong Kong have defied a police ban to mark the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with a vigil, as the city’s legislature passed a law criminalising the mocking of China’s national anthem. Many fear this year’s commemoration might be Hong Kong’s last, as the proposed imposition of Chinese laws on the special administrative region would prevent and punish activities that threaten national security.
Continue reading...Student protesters and journalists in 1989 recall the joy and hope before the crackdown
It was mid-morning in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on 1 June, 1989. Someone had turned on a boombox playing 80s disco music, and people began to dance. A young couple spins in a small opening in the crowd. The woman smiles slightly, her eyes almost closed, as her partner in a loose dress shirt and blazer turns her. Around them, people are clapping.
It is a photo that captures a side of the pro-democracy movement often overshadowed by what came after – the brutal military crackdown on the evening of 3 June and morning of 4 June. There is no official death toll but activists believe hundreds, possibly thousands, were killed.
Continue reading...Protesters defy police ban as legislation prohibits mockery of Chinese anthem
Thousands of people have defied a police ban in Hong Kong to mourn the victims of the Tiananmen Square massacre, after the city’s legislature passed a law criminalising the mockery of China’s national anthem.
Many fear this year’s commemoration of the events of 4 June 1989 might be Hong Kong’s last, as China has approved a plan to impose national security laws on the semi-autonomous city that would prevent and punish “acts and activities” that threaten national security.
Continue reading...Announcement means event will not be held for first time since massacre in 1989
Hong Kong police have formally banned this week’s vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre, citing Covid-19 measures.
The move had been expected, especially after the Hong Kong government extended its ban on public gatherings in groups larger than eight, but the announcement confirms that for the first time since the Chinese military killed untold numbers of protesters on 4 June 1989, there will be no commemorative event.
Continue reading...Restrictions were due to end but Hong Kong extends social distancing measures for 14 days
Hong Kong has in effect banned an annual vigil for the Tiananmen Square massacre by extending its physical distancing measures for another 14 days.
After two consecutive days without local transmissions of Covid-19, the city state’s authorities announced some restrictions would ease, but those limiting gatherings to a maximum of eight would be extended for another 14 days.
Continue reading...Inclusion of pledge to follow Communist party leadership sparks rare defiance at Fudan
Changes to the charter of one of China’s top universities, including dropping the phrase “freedom of thought” and the inclusion of a pledge to follow the Communist party’s leadership, has sparked fierce debate and a rare act of student defiance.
The changes to the charter of Fudan University in Shanghai, considered one of China’s more liberal institutions, emerged on Tuesday when the education ministry said it had approved the revisions for three universities.
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