The world’s only museum chronicling the Chinese government’s brutal 1989 crackdown on student protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square said it faces closure because of a legal dispute, its Hong Kong operators said on Friday.
The pro-democracy group behind the tiny Hong Kong museum said it has decided to look for another space, rather than fight a costly lawsuit launched by other owners of the building where the museum is located.
PRESERVING HISTORY
The June 4th Museum, which opened two years ago, is dedicated to preserving the memory of one of the darkest chapters of modern Chinese history through photographs, videos, artifacts and written histories. Its exhibits include a replica of the Goddess of Democracy statue famously erected by protesters in Tiananmen Square.
Located in a small office building in the territory’s Kowloon Peninsula, not far from a major tourist district, the 75m2 museum is aimed at challenging the Chinese Communist Party’s official verdict that the mostly student-led protests were a “counterrevolutionary riot.”
Unlike in mainland China, where the crackdown remains a taboo, memory of the Tiananmen protests remains strong in Hong Kong, which retains civil liberties 17 years after Britain ceded control of the territory to China.
BREAKING THE RULES
The lawsuit claims the group is breaking building rules by not using the space as an office, said Hong Kong Legislator Lee Cheuk-yan (李卓人), secretary of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China.
“They have a very expensive legal team to challenge us, so it takes up a lot of our time and resources in facing this lawsuit,” Lee said, calling it a form of politically motivated harassment.
He said his group has decided to find a new and bigger space and will hold a crowdfunding campaign to raise HK$3 million (US$387,000).
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