Renowned Tiananmen massacre monument removed in Hong Kong

By ZEN SOO
Associated Press

HONG KONG (AP) — A monument at a Hong Kong university that was the best-known public remembrance of the Tiananmen Square massacre on Chinese soil has been removed as one of the city’s last places of public commemoration of the bloody 1989 crackdown. For some at the University of Hong Kong, the move reflected the erosion of the relative freedoms they have enjoyed compared to mainland China. The 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. The university says it had asked that the sculpture be put in storage because of legal risks.