Global Courant 2023-05-05 16:05:00
HONG KONG — Hong Kong police on Friday seized an exhibit in connection with what they said was an attempt to incite subversion, with media reporting it was a statue commemorating the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square in Beijing against pro-democracy protesters in 1989.
Media reported that the exhibit was the Pillar of Shame, an eight-meter-tall statue topped by dozens of torn and twisted bodies in memory of protesters killed in the crackdown in and around Tiananmen Square more than three decades ago.
Police did not provide details about the exhibit they said they seized in the Yuen Long district of the former British colony.
“National Security… conducted search warrants this morning. An exhibit related to an ‘incitement to subversion’ case has been seized,” the police said in a statement.
They did not say who was suspected of using the image, which was in storage, to incite subversion.
The seizure comes weeks before the commemoration of the Tiananmen Square performance on June 4.
Hong Kong traditionally held the largest annual vigil in the world to commemorate the crackdown.
The crackdown is taboo in the rest of China and the vigil in Hong Kong, traditionally held in a city park, was banned from 2020, ostensibly due to coronavirus restrictions.
The two-ton copper Pillar of Shame was first displayed at a memorial in Hong Kong’s Tiananmen Square in 1997, the same year Britain returned the city to China.
In 2021, the University of Hong Kong dismantled and removed the statue “based on outside legal advice and risk assessment in the interest of the university”. It has since been kept in a freight container on university-owned property.
Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot, who created the work, said he was not informed of the police seizure.
“This is outrageous. This is my sculpture and no one has consulted or informed me about anything,” he said in an email to Reuters.
It is not clear whether the Tiananmen Square vigil will take place this year.
The city council said this week that parts of Victoria Park, where the rally is usually held, would be closed for maintenance.
The vigil organizer, the Hong Kong Alliance, was disbanded in 2021 after its leaders were arrested and charged with inciting subversion under a national security law imposed by China in 2020 following anti-government protests.
