A Hong Kong university has banned its students from erecting a statue that honors victims of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, as tensions simmer over alleged restrictions on public mourning in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory on the 21st anniversary of the bloodshed.
The Chinese University of Hong Kong said in a statement on Wednesday that the school “must maintain its principle of political neutrality.”
The head of the university’s student union, which made the request, accused the administration of being hypocritical, noting that the university’s president, Lawrence Lau (劉遵義), himself wasn’t neutral because he serves on advisory bodies to both the Hong Kong and the central Chinese governments.
“A government suppressing unarmed citizens is not a matter of political ideology. It’s a matter of right or wrong,” student union president Eric Lai (黎恩灝) said yesterday.
“As an academic institution, as one of the most prestigious schools in Hong Kong, it has an extra responsibility to respect freedom of speech,” pro-democracy legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人) said.
Lai said the student union will defy the administration and move the 6.4m tall Goddess of Democracy statue and large carving depicting the 1989 military eviction to the Chinese University campus today.
The two pieces by US-based New Zealand artist Chen Weiming (陳微明) have become symbols in Hong Kong’s fight to retain its right to mourn the Tiananmen victims — a taboo subject on the mainland. Hong Kong is promised Western-style civil liberties as part of its special political status under Chinese rule.
Hong Kong police seized the two pieces of art on Saturday when local democracy activists tried to set them up on a sidewalk, alleging that the activists didn’t have a permit. They released the two works on Tuesday, allowing them to be displayed at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park, where activists plan to hold their annual candlelight vigil for the Tiananmen victims today.
But on Wednesday, Hong Kong immigration authorities denied entry to Chen, who wanted to inspect his two pieces for possible damage, an opposition legislator said.
Chen’s statue was inspired by a similar one that was set up on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square during the 1989 protest. It was toppled by tanks during the crackdown.
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