In December, a Tiananmen “Pillar of Shame” statue was torn down by the university.
A major Hong Kong university on Saturday covered a painted slogan commemorating China’s Tiananmen Square crackdown, the latest example of a public June 4 memorial being removed in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong.
a Reuters The journalist noticed about a dozen construction workers wearing yellow hard hats painted the length of the Hong Kong University (HKU) Square Bridge around gray metal construction billboards with “martyrs slogans”.
The slogan painted in Chinese characters on the pavement read: “The souls of the martyrs will live forever in spite of the cold-blooded massacre. The spark of democracy will always shine for the demise of evil.”
When asked why the university covered up the 20-character slogan that removed the Tiananmen statue in December, a spokesperson for HKU said by email, “The University of Hong Kong regularly performs maintenance work at various locations and facilities. The above site is one such project.”
For more than three decades, it has been a tradition for students at HKU to repaint the slogan on the bridge ahead of the 1989 anniversary of the action.
The fencing of a 20-metre (65-foot) tall slogan is the latest move in Hong Kong to include monuments, people or organizations associated with sensitive dates and events.
Rights groups and witnesses say Beijing’s crackdown on students and democracy activists may have killed thousands. Chinese officials put the death toll at around 300.
The former British colony was long the only place on Chinese soil where 4 June could be publicly commemorated, unlike mainland China where it is a taboo subject and censored. However, for the past two years, authorities have put a moratorium on the annual candlelight surveillance, citing COVID-19.
In December, three local universities took down statues to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown in Beijing that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, when Chinese soldiers opened fire on civilians.
Authorities have locked down Hong Kong under a national security law imposed by Beijing in 2020 that some foreign governments, including the United States, say are being used to quell civil society, prison democracy campaigners and silence dissent .
Officials say the law has restored order and stability after massive street protests in 2019.
Several workers and security guards at the bridge site declined to comment on the work. Parts of the slogan that could not be surrounded by billboards about 2 m (6 -ft) high were overlaid with metal plates on the road.
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